Social Skills and the Individual Wage Growth of Less Educated Workers

Philippe Aghion (), Antonin Bergeaud, Richard Blundell () and Rachel Griffith
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Philippe Aghion: INSEAD - Institut Européen d'administration des Affaires, CdF (institution) - Collège de France, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research, London School of Economics
Rachel Griffith: University of Manchester [Manchester], CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research

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Abstract: This study employs matched employee-employer data from the UK to highlight the importance of social skills, in particular workers' ability to work well in a team and communicate effectively with co-workers, as a driver of wage growth for workers with lower formal education. Our findings indicate that in tasks emphasizing social skills, such workers not only enjoy greater wage progression with tenure but also accrue higher returns in environments with a higher concentration of more educated colleagues. Additionally, workers' exit occur sooner from jobs where social skills are more important. We rationalize these dynamics through a model that assesses social skills based on their complementarity with a firm's assets and where a worker's social skills, initially opaque to both the employee and employer, become increasingly apparent over

Keywords: Team Work; Social Skills; Tenure-Wage Profiles; Individual Wage Growth; Firm Pay Premium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-03-29
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Related works:
Working Paper: Social Skills and the Individual Wage Growth of Less Educated Workers (2024)
Working Paper: Social skills and the individual wage growth of less educated workers (2024)
Working Paper: Social Skills and the Individual Wage Growth of Less Educated Workers (2023)
Working Paper: Social skills and the individual wage growth of less educated workers (2023)
Working Paper: Social Skills and the Individual Wage Growth of Less Educated Workers (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04759146

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4774931

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