Macroeconomic Conditions When Young Shape Job Preferences for Life

Maria Cotofan; L Cassar; Robert Dur; S Meijer

doi:https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01057

Macroeconomic Conditions When Young Shape Job Preferences for Life

Maria Cotofan, L Cassar, Robert Dur, S Meijer

Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

103 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Preferences for monetary and non-monetary job attributes are important for understanding workers’ motivation and the organization of work. Little is known, however, about how those job preferences are formed. We study how macroeconomic conditions when young shape workers’ job preferences for life. Using variation in income-per-capita across US regions and over time since the 1920s, we find that job preferences vary in systematic ways with experienced macroeconomic conditions during young adulthood. Recessions create cohorts of workers who give higher priority to income, whereas booms make cohorts care more about job meaning, for the rest of their lives.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	467-473
Number of pages	7
Journal	The Review of Economics and Statistics
Volume	105
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01057
Publication status	Published - Mar 2023

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Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Macroeconomic Conditions When Young Shape Job Preferences for Life

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