The Growing Importance of Social Skills for Labor Market Outcomes Across Education Groups

Kim Sun Hyung (sunhyungkim@shu.edu.cn) and Kwon Dohyoung (kdh5550@gachon.ac.kr)
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Kim Sun Hyung: SILC Business School, 34747 Shanghai University , Shanghai, China
Kwon Dohyoung: Department of Economics, 65440 Gachon University , 1342 Seongnam-Daero, Sujeong-Gu, Seongnam-Si, Gyeonggi-Do 13120, Republic of Korea

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2024, vol. 24, issue 3, 847-878

Abstract: Using the 1979 and 1997 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper shows that the growing return to social skills documented by Deming (2017. “The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 132 (4): 1593–640) has been largely concentrated on college-educated workers, rather than on high school-educated workers. These findings are corroborated by the pronounced occupational sorting of college-educated workers into occupations requiring high levels of social skills. Moreover, the wage premium for college-educated workers employed in these occupations has increased markedly. Our empirical evidence provides one possible source of rising wage inequality within and between education levels.

Keywords: social skills; occupational sorting; college wage premium (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1515/bejeap-2022-0398

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