Introduction: Cognitive and non-cognitive skill formation and labor market outcomes

Abstract

"For the last few decades, societies in most developed countries have been characterized by rising economic inequality. There is abundant evidence that societal inequality is related to the transmission of economic status between parents and children. The literature on this subject to date has focused on intergenerational income mobility and educational mobility as the two benchmarks for measuring differences in socioeconomic status between parents and children, and has largely neglected the underlying causes of intergenerational correlations. Recent research, however, has begun attempting to disentangle the causal mechanisms (Black and Devereux, 2011). The studies presented in this book complement this line of research by investigating whether the transmission of cognitive and non-cognitive skills may drive intergenerational correlation patterns. Cognitive skills refer to various dimensions of intelligence such as verbal fluency and the ability to solve new problems; Non-cognitive skills comprise personality traits such as openness to experience and emotional stability. Cognitive and noncognitive abilities may play a major role in both educational and income mobility by affecting educational outcomes and earnings - either directly, as part of an individual's overall human capital, or indirectly, when cognitive abilities and personality traits determine schooling outcomes. Strong intergenerational transmission of cognitive abilities and personality traits may therefore translate into higher persistence in educational and earnings inequalities. The studies presented in this book provide new evidence on the formation of cognitive and non-cognitive skills and on their implications for earnings in Germany based on data from the German Socio- Economic Panel Study (SOEP)." (Text excerpt, IAB-Doku)

Cite article

Anger, S. (2012): Introduction: Cognitive and non-cognitive skill formation and labor market outcomes. Berlin, 10 p.