The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market*

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ID: 292349
2017
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Abstract
Abstract The labor market increasingly rewards social skills. Between 1980 and 2012, jobs requiring high levels of social interaction grew by nearly 12 percentage points as a share of the U.S. labor force. Math-intensive but less social jobs—including many STEM occupations—shrank by 3.3 percentage points over the same period. Employment and wage growth were particularly strong for jobs requiring high levels of both math skill and social skills. To understand these patterns, I develop a model of team production where workers “trade tasks” to exploit their comparative advantage. In the model, social skills reduce coordination costs, allowing workers to specialize and work together more efficiently. The model generates predictions about sorting and the relative returns to skill across occupations, which I investigate using data from the NLSY79 and the NLSY97. Using a comparable set of skill measures and covariates across survey waves, I find that the labor market return to social skills was much greater in the 2000s than in the mid-1980s and 1990s.
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openalex_W1884571572 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors David Deming
Journal the quarterly journal of economics
Year 2017
DOI
10.1093/qje/qjx022
URL
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-pdf/132/4/1593/30637898/qjx022.pdf
Keywords Keywords not found

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