LABOR‐MARKET CONSEQUENCES OF POOR ATTITUDE AND LOW SELF‐ESTEEM IN YOUTH

In a recent national survey that asked employers to rank the importance of particular applicant traits for nonsupervisory and production positions, "applicant's attitude" was the only trait that was reported to be "very important." In fact, "academic performance, years of schooling completed, teachers' recommendations, and industry-based credentials (certifying applicant skills)" all ranked lower (Bowles et al. 2000). A second, independent survey of employers in Holzer and Wissoker (2000) also suggests that more weight is placed on a good attitude than on basic skills among new hires of low-skilled workers. In this article, I assess the role of pre-labor market attitude and self-esteem in explaining disparities observed in the labor market experiences of a sample of high school graduates. The apparent importance employers ascribe to attitude and self-esteem gives clear reason to expect that such a relationship exists. I demonstrate that such survey responses are corroborated by real economic consequences for those with poor attitude and self-esteem. Using longitudinal data on a 1972 cohort of high school graduates, I show that high school students who reveal negative attitudes and self-esteem subsequently attain fewer years of postsecondary education relative to their high school cohort, are less likely to be employed 14 years following high school, and where working for pay, earn less. Accounting directly for the labor force participation decision, I also document a higher incidence of unemployment among these individuals. Furthermore, I find evidence that negative attitudes and self-esteem are associated with jobs later in life that require the individual to spend time working with things, as opposed to people, for example, and that those who exhibit poor pre-labor market attitude and self-esteem are subsequently more closely supervised at work and given less discretion in their daily activities. All told, attitude and self-esteem in youth are shown to have important and long-lasting economic implications. In the following section I briefly discuss related literatures. Specifically, two areas of the literature are considered: the effect of joblessness on self-esteem and the relationship between other noncognitive skills or worker attributes and labor market outcomes. Section II then introduces the data and methods used in investigating the relationships in question. Empirical results are reported in section III and are followed by some discussion and concluding remarks. I. PREVIOUS LITERATURE This article is closely related to two areas of existing literature. First, there exists a small body of literature that documents a relationship between labor market activity and self-esteem. However, this literature has heretofore focused more on the damage of joblessness to an individual's perception of self-worth than on the direction of causality considered here. For example, Goldsmith et al. (1995, 1996a) find relationships between contemporaneous joblessness and self-esteem and historic joblessness and subsequent self-esteem, respectively. Arguably, the causality between attitudes and jobless spells is not clearly in one direction or the other. In this article, I contribute clear evidence of the reverse causation--causation running from attitude and self-esteem to future labor market outcomes. Second, there is a growing body of literature on the importance of noncognitive skills in wage determination. This literature suggests that measures of aggression and withdrawal (Osborne 1999), individual motivation (Goldsmith et al. 2000), behavioral problems in high school (Cawley et al. 2001), one's "locus of control" or outlook on life (Goldsmith et al. 1997b; Osborne 1999; Bertrand and Mullainathan 2001; Coleman and DeLeire 2003), and mental health (Bartel and Taubman 1979, 1986; Frank and Gertler 1991; Mullahy and Sindelar 1993) each have predictive power with respect to wages. That employer surveys suggest that attitude is highly valued alone leads one to anticipate that attitude be related to earnings. …