IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qss/dqsswp/1203.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The relative importance of adolescent skills and behaviors for adult earnings: A cross-national study

Author

Listed:
  • Kathryn Duckworth

    (Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK.)

  • Greg J. Duncan

    (University of California, Irvine, 2056 Education, Mail Code: 5500, Irvine, CA, 92697.)

  • Katja Kokko

    (Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyvaskyla.)

  • Anna-Liisa Lyyra

    (Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 University of Jyvaskyla.)

  • Molly Metzger

    (Northwestern University, 626 Library Place, Evanston, IL 60208.)

  • Sharon Simonton

    (University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, 426 Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI.)

Abstract

Seeking convergent findings in five data sets from four countries, we assess the relative importance of adolescent skills and behaviors for completed schooling and labor market success in adulthood. We provide a framework for classifying "noncognitive" skills and use data designed by developmental psychologists to provide reliable measures of a variety of achievement and behavioral skills assessed between ages 13 and 16. Results show that adolescent achievement, particularly math achievement, is a stronger predictor of completed schooling than measures of noncognitive skills. Achievement skills also out-predict noncognitive skills with regard to adult earnings, although the differences are not as striking.

Suggested Citation

  • Kathryn Duckworth & Greg J. Duncan & Katja Kokko & Anna-Liisa Lyyra & Molly Metzger & Sharon Simonton, 2012. "The relative importance of adolescent skills and behaviors for adult earnings: A cross-national study," DoQSS Working Papers 12-03, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    • Handle: RePEc:qss:dqsswp:1203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.ucl.ac.uk/REPEc/pdf/qsswp1203.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Borghans, Lex & Weel, Bas ter & Weinberg, Bruce A., 2005. "People People: Social Capital and the Labor-Market - Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," Research Memorandum 002, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    2. Francis Green & Stephen Machin & David Wilkinson, 1998. "The Meaning and Determinants of Skills Shortages," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 60(2), pages 165-187, May.
    3. Margo Coleman & Thomas DeLeire, 2003. "An Economic Model of Locus of Control and the Human Capital Investment Decision," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 38(3).
    4. Groves, Melissa Osborne, 2005. "How important is your personality? Labor market returns to personality for women in the US and UK," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 827-841, December.
    5. Kuhn, Peter J. & Weinberger, Catherine, 2002. "Leadership Skills and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 482, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Erik Lindqvist & Roine Vestman, 2011. "The Labor Market Returns to Cognitive and Noncognitive Ability: Evidence from the Swedish Enlistment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 101-128, January.
    7. Jutta Viinikainen & Katja Kokko & Lea Pulkkinen & Jaakko Pehkonen, 2010. "Personality and Labour Market Income: Evidence from Longitudinal Data," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(2), pages 201-220, June.
    8. Janet Currie & Duncan Thomas, 1999. "Early Test Scores, Socioeconomic Status and Future Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 6943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Knapp, Martin & King, Derek & Healey, Andrew & Thomas, Cicely, 2011. "Economic outcomes in adulthood and their associations with antisocial conduct, attention deficit and anxiety problems in childhood," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 38200, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Murnane, Richard J. & Willett, John B. & Braatz, M. Jay & Duhaldeborde, Yves, 2001. "Do different dimensions of male high school students' skills predict labor market success a decade later? Evidence from the NLSY," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 311-320, August.
    11. Cawley, John & Heckman, James & Vytlacil, Edward, 2001. "Three observations on wages and measured cognitive ability," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 419-442, September.
    12. Almlund, Mathilde & Duckworth, Angela Lee & Heckman, James & Kautz, Tim, 2011. "Personality Psychology and Economics," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-181, Elsevier.
    13. Borghans, Lex & Weel, Bas ter & Weinberg, Bruce A., 2005. "People People: Social Capital and the Labor-Market - Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," Research Memorandum 002, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    14. Goldsmith, Arthur H & Veum, Jonathan R & Darity, William, Jr, 1997. "The Impact of Psychological and Human Capital on Wages," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 815-829, October.
    15. Pedro Carneiro & Claire Crawford & Alissa Goodman, 2007. "The Impact of Early Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills on Later Outcomes," CEE Discussion Papers 0092, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    16. Yona Rubinstein & James J. Heckman, 2001. "The Importance of Noncognitive Skills: Lessons from the GED Testing Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 145-149, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francesconi, Marco & Heckman, James J., 2016. "Symposium on Child Development and Parental Investment: Introduction," IZA Discussion Papers 9977, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Francesconi, Marco & Heckman, James J, 2015. "Symposium on Child Development and Parental Investment: Introduction," Economics Discussion Papers 16868, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    3. James J. Heckman & Stefano Mosso, 2014. "The Economics of Human Development and Social Mobility," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 689-733, August.
    4. Shelly Lundberg, 2013. "The College Type: Personality and Educational Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 421-441.
    5. Guerra, Nancy & Modecki, Kathryn & Cunningham, Wendy, 2014. "Developing social-emotional skills for the labor market : the PRACTICE model," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7123, The World Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cubel, Maria & Nuevo-Chiquero, Ana & Sanchez-Pages, Santiago & Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, 2014. "Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Lab," IZA Discussion Papers 8308, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Maria Cubel & Ana Nuevo‐Chiquero & Santiago Sanchez‐Pages & Marian Vidal‐Fernandez, 2016. "Do Personality Traits Affect Productivity? Evidence from the Laboratory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(592), pages 654-681, May.
    3. Thiel, Hendrik & Thomsen, Stephan L., 2013. "Noncognitive skills in economics: Models, measurement, and empirical evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 189-214.
    4. Fuchs, Benjamin, 2015. "The Effect of Teenage Employment on Character Skills and Occupational Choice Strategies," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113030, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Stefanie Schurer, 2013. "Two Economists' Musings on the Stability of Locus of Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 358-400, August.
    6. Chen, Weiwei & Grove, Wayne A. & Hussey, Andrew, 2017. "The role of confidence and noncognitive skills for post-baccalaureate academic and labor market outcomes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 10-29.
    7. Silvia Mendolia & Ian Walker, 2015. "Youth unemployment and personality traits," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-26, December.
    8. Fuchs, Benjamin, 2016. "The effect of teenage employment on character skills, expectations and occupational choice strategies," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 14-2016, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    9. Shelly Lundberg, 2013. "The College Type: Personality and Educational Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(3), pages 421-441.
    10. Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Thomas Deckers, 2021. "Socioeconomic Status and Inequalities in Children’s IQ and Economic Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(9), pages 2504-2545.
    11. de Araujo, Pedro & Lagos, Stephen, 2013. "Self-esteem, education, and wages revisited," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 120-132.
    12. Mendolia, Silvia & Walker, Ian, 2014. "The effect of personality traits on subject choice and performance in high school: Evidence from an English cohort," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 47-65.
    13. Okumura Tsunao & Usui Emiko, 2014. "Do Parents’ Social Skills Influence Their Children’s Sociability?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 1081-1116, July.
    14. Humphries, John Eric & Kosse, Fabian, 2017. "On the interpretation of non-cognitive skills – What is being measured and why it matters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 174-185.
    15. Gensowski, Miriam, 2018. "Personality, IQ, and lifetime earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 170-183.
    16. repec:mpr:mprres:4872 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Melinda Petre, 2018. "Are Employers Omniscient? Employer Learning About Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(3), pages 323-360, July.
    18. Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2015. "Locus of control and the labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.
    19. Elke Lüdemann, 2011. "Schooling and the Formation of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Outcomes," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 39.
    20. Alita Nandi & Cheti Nicoletti, 2014. "Explaining personality pay gaps in the UK," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(26), pages 3131-3150, September.
    21. Nils Braakmann, 2009. "The Role of Psychological Traits for the Gender Gap in Full-Time Employment and Wages: Evidence from Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 162, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    adolescent skills; adolescent behaviors; adult earnings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:qss:dqsswp:1203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dr Neus Bover Fonts (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dqioeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.