Personality traits and unemployment: Evidence from longitudinal data

Jutta Viinikainen and Katja Kokko

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2012, vol. 33, issue 6, 1204-1222

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.

Keywords: Personality; Unemployment; Stability of the Big Five personality traits; Reverse causality; Errors-in-variables bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:33:y:2012:i:6:p:1204-1222

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2012.09.001

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