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Personality traits and unemployment: Evidence from longitudinal data

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Listed author(s):
  • Viinikainen, Jutta
  • Kokko, Katja
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    Abstract

    This study contributes to the literature on how personality is related to labour market success by providing evidence on the relationship between personality traits and unemployment. After accounting for reverse causality and measurement error, our results suggest that higher openness was associated with increased cumulative unemployment at the prime working age. It seems that this connection occurs because individuals with higher openness enter into unemployment spells more frequently – not because their unemployment spells would be particularly long.

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    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487012000992
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    Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Economic Psychology.

    Volume (Year): 33 (2012)
    Issue (Month): 6 ()
    Pages: 1204-1222

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    Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:33:y:2012:i:6:p:1204-1222
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.09.001
    Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep

    Keywords: Personality; Unemployment; Stability of the Big Five personality traits; Reverse causality; Errors-in-variables bias;

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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    1. Nils Braakmann, 2009. "Psychological traits and the gender gap in full-time employment and wages: Evidence from Germany," Working Paper Series in Economics 112, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
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    Cited by:

    1. repec:eee:enepol:v:107:y:2017:i:c:p:472-479 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Anger, Silke & Camehl, Georg & Peter, Frauke, 2017. "Involuntary job loss and changes in personality traits," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 71-91.
    3. Xu, Yilan & Beller, Andrea H. & Roberts, Brent W. & Brown, Jeffrey R., 2015. "Personality and young adult financial distress," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 90-100.
    4. Sciulli, Dario, 2016. "Adult employment probabilities of socially maladjusted children," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 9-22.
    5. Vellekoop, Nathanaël, 2016. "The impact of long-run macroeconomic experiences on personality," SAFE Working Paper Series 142, Research Center SAFE - Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe, Goethe University Frankfurt.

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