Wage premia for skills: the complementarity of cognitive and non-cognitive skills
International Journal of Manpower
ISSN: 0143-7720
Article publication date: 26 October 2020
Issue publication date: 22 June 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to assess the degree of complementarity between cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills, and to evaluate their joint impact on individual wages.
Design/methodology/approach
The author uses a survey representative of the Polish working-age population with well-established measures of cognitive and non-cognitive skills.
Findings
Non-cognitive skills are important in the labour market, not only as separate factors that influence wages, but as complements to cognitive skills. Specifically, the analysis showed that the more neurotic an individual is, the lower his or her returns to cognitive skills are. Social skills were not shown to be complementary to cognitive skills in Poland unlike the recent results in the United States.
Originality/value
To the best of author's knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence that neurotic individuals have lower returns to cognitive skills. It also tests the existence of the complementarity between social and cognitive skills.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank three anonymous referees for their useful comments and suggestions. The author also wishes to thank Iga Magda, Piotr Lewandowski and participants of the IZA World Labor Conference 2018, the 2018 WIEM conference and the 4th PIAAC International Conference for helpful comments.Funding: This work was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant number 2017/27/B/HS4/01201).
Citation
Palczyńska, M. (2021), "Wage premia for skills: the complementarity of cognitive and non-cognitive skills", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 42 No. 4, pp. 556-580. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-08-2019-0379
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited