IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewdip/10003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Female labor force participation and the big five

Author

Listed:
  • Wichert, Laura
  • Pohlmeier, Winfried

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between personality traits and female labor force participation. While research on the role of cognitive skills for individual labor market success has a long tradition in economics, comparatively little is known about the channels through which non-cognitive skills affect individual labor market behavior. There is striking evidence that personality traits play a major role in explaining individual differences in school attendance and school performance. However, comparatively little is known about how and which personality traits effect labor supply decisions. In this paper, we relate personality traits to preference parameters using a conventional structural framework of labor force participation. This allows us to separate the direct effects of personality traits affecting the individual participation decision through different individual preferences from the indirect effects through wages. We can show that personality traits play an important role in the female labor force participation decision. The channels through which personality traits effect labor force participation are manifold and depend on the specific trait. Aggregation of traits to a single index is therefore a suboptimal strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Wichert, Laura & Pohlmeier, Winfried, 2010. "Female labor force participation and the big five," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-003, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:10003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/30008/1/616560842.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    personality traits; female labor supply; wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:zbw:zewdip:10003. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.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.