poly: Good workers come from clean homes?

"Soft-Skills and Long-Run Labor Market Success"
      Research in Labor Economics, Vol. 17, 1998

      BY: GREG DUNCAN
              Northwestern University
           RACHEL DUNIFON
              Northwestern University

 Contact: GREG DUNCAN
   Email: Mailto:greg-duncan@nwu.edu
  Postal: Northwestern University
           Institute for Policy Research
           2040 Sheridan Rd.
           Evanston, IL 60208 USA
   Phone: (312)467-1503
     Fax: (847)467-2459
 Co-Auth: RACHEL DUNIFON
   Email: Mailto:rdunifon@nwu.edu
  Postal: Northwestern University
           Institute for Policy Research
           Evanston, IL 60208 USA

ABSTRACT:
 The long-run impact on earnings of motivational and social
 factors is assessed using data from the Panel Study of Income
 Dynamics (PSID). Our analyses use a sample of men first observed
 in their 20s and relates their social and motivational traits to
 labor-market attainments measured 15-25 years later. We also
 examine the role of on-the-job training and labor supply in
 accounting for the link between earnings and these motivational
 and social traits. In contrast to most previous work with these
 data, we find considerable analytic power for a number of
 traits. Taken together, our motivational measures are as
 powerful as completed schooling in accounting for future
 labor-market success. Some of our social-trait measures serve as
 negative predictors of earnings, while a measure of the
 cleanliness of the respondent's home was a persistently powerful
 positive predictor of labor-market success.

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar FAX: 510-643-8614
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 510-643-1884
Received on Wed Jan 13 12:40:13 1999