The Character Skills of Immigrants

Abstract

We use novel data on a representative sample of the U.S. population to examine how immigrants and second-generation immigrants compare to natives on non-cognitive character skills as measured by a common taxonomy of personality. Our findings reveal that immigrants and second-generation immigrants tend to have higher levels of openness to experience and agency than natives. Additionally, second-generation immigrants have higher levels of conscientiousness than natives. The findings are especially salient since character skills have been shown to influence labor market outcomes. Next, we examine the role of character skills differences on earnings by immigrant generation. Our earnings estimates reveal that non-cognitive skills have approximately as much explanatory power as schooling, yet non-cognitive skills have a modest impact on the earnings differences of immigrants and second-generation immigrants vis-a-vis natives.