Marginalium

A note in the margins

March 7, 2025

Marginalium

My commentary on something from elsewhere on the web.

Personality traits and gender gaps:

Higher conscientiousness and emotional stability and lower agreeableness levels enhance earnings and job stability for both genders. Differences in the distributions of personality characteristics between men and women account for as much of the gender wage gap as do the large differences in labor market experience.

This would actually be quite a substantial departure from the accepted understanding that Big 5 personality traits have negligible impact on jobs. Usually, this is because they measure job performance. But of course, you don’t need to perform to earn more—you can apparently just be less agreeable.


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