Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/258930 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CEBI Working Paper Series No. 16/20
Publisher: 
University of Copenhagen, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI), Copenhagen
Abstract: 
We document gender and socioeconomic inequalities in personality over the life cycle (age 18-75), using the Big Five 2 (BFI-2) inventory linked to administrative data on a large Danish population. We estimate life-cycle profiles non-parametrically and adjust for cohort and sample-selection effects. We find that: (1) Women of all ages score more highly than men on all personality traits, including three that are positively associated with wages; (2) High-education groups score more favorably on Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism than low-education groups, while there is no socioeconomic inequality by Conscientiousness; (3) Over the life cycle, gender and socioeconomic gaps remain constant, with two exceptions: the gender and SES gaps in Openness to Experience widen, while gender di erences in Neuroticism, a trait associated with worse outcomes, diminish with age. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of gender wage gaps, household production models, and optimal taxation.
Subjects: 
inequality
personality
big five-2 inventory
life cycle dynamics
gender disadvantage
socioeconomic disadvantage
JEL: 
J24
I24
J62
I31
J16
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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