Worker Personality: Another Skill Bias beyond Education in the Digital Age

Eckhardt Bode, Stephan Brunow, Ingrid Ott () and Alina Sorgner
Additional contact information
Ingrid Ott: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Kiel Institute for the World Economy

No 2016-020, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but also with respect to noncognitive skills (personality). We measure the direction of technological change by estimated future digitalization probabilities of occupations, and noncognitive skills by the Big Five personality traits from several German worker surveys. Even though we control extensively for education and experience, we find that workers characterized by strong openness and emotional stability tend to be less susceptible to digitalization. Traditional indicators of human capital thus measure workers' skill endowments only imperfectly.

Keywords: Worker personality; Noncognitive skills; Digital transformation; Direction of technical change; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 J24 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-11-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-ino, nep-lma, nep-neu, nep-ore and nep-pay
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://oweb.b67.uni-jena.de/Papers/jerp2016/wp_2016_020.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Worker Personality: Another Skill Bias beyond Education in the Digital Age (2019)
Journal Article: Worker Personality: Another Skill Bias beyond Education in the Digital Age (2019)
Working Paper: Worker Personality: Another Skill Bias beyond Education in the Digital Age (2016)
Working Paper: Worker personality: Another skill bias beyond education in the digital age (2016)
Working Paper: Worker personality: Another skill bias beyond education in the digital age (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2016-020

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