Teaming Up Hinders Moving Up: Team Interactions and Social Mobility

Santiago Caicedo, Alejandro Corrales, Jose-Alberto Guerra, Jorge Rodriguez and Román Andrés Zárate
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Santiago Caicedo: Northeastern University
Alejandro Corrales: Departamento Nacional de Planeación (DNP)
Jorge Rodriguez: Instituto Colombiano para la Evaluación de la Educación (ICFES);
Román Andrés Zárate: University of Toronto

No 2026-17, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: This document examines how social skills and team interactions shape intergenerational mobility. Using Colombian administrative data linked to occupational skill requirements, we document that academic majors associated with higher social-skill demands exhibit systematically lower social mobility. A one standard deviation increase in social-skill requirements corresponds to a 0.046-point increase in the intergenerational income persistence coefficient. We implement lab-in-the-field experiments with 604 undergraduate students, randomly varying team socioeconomic composition and the information participants observe about teammates’ backgrounds. Low-income participants receive significantly lower leadership recognition in mixed-income teams when signals of socioeconomic status (such as high school affiliation or names) are revealed, despite comparable task performance. These gaps emerge in both peer nominations and self-assessments and are accompanied by reduced perceptions of teamwork quality and individual contributions. Our findings suggest that team-based environments may amplify inequality through social evaluation mechanisms rather than productive complementarities, providing a micro-level explanation for the lower mobility observed in socially intensive occupations and highlighting the importance of early social integration policies.

Keywords: social mobility; intergenerational mobility; social skills; teamwork; leadership; discrimination; higher education; educational segregation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 J24 J62 J71 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42
Date: 2026-03
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Published in Documentos CEDE - Universidad de los Andes

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