Conscientiousness and Labour Market Outcomes

Personality traits play an important role in determining earnings; however, the specific behaviours related to personality traits that explain the earnings differentials remain unclear. Using panel data from Indonesia, we examine the associations between Big Five personality traits and employment and earnings, as well as the potential channels linking personality to these outcomes. We find that conscientiousness is a robust predictor of both employment and earnings. We further show that the association between conscientiousness and earnings is primarily accounted for by higher workload and possibly higher effort. Our findings highlight conscientiousness and related behaviours as potentially relevant targets for future policy interventions.