Personality traits and unemployment: Evidence from longitudinal data

This study contributes to the literature on how personality is related to labour market success by providing evidence on the relationship between personality traits and unemployment. After accounting for reverse causality and measurement error, our results suggest that higher openness was associated with increased cumulative unemployment at the prime working age. It seems that this connection occurs because individuals with higher openness enter into unemployment spells more frequently – not because their unemployment spells would be particularly long.

► Higher openness was associated with longer cumulative unemployment.
► Openness was related to increased number of unemployment spells.
► Unemployment at young ages might affect personality traits.