Whose Job Will be Taken Over by a Computer? The Role of Personality in Predicting Job Computerizability over the Lifespan

Abstract

Economists estimate that 47% of US jobs will be computerized in the future. This paper tests the prospective role of a comprehensive range personality factors on selection into more (or less) computerizable jobs. We used a US representative high school sample (N = 346 660) and a longitudinal design. At baseline, we measured social background, intelligence, personality traits and vocational interests. In two follow‐ups (11 and 50 years later), we recorded occupations and coded their probability of being computerized based on the skills required and technological developments. Multiple regressions showed that, regardless of social background, people who were more intelligent, mature, interested in arts, and sciences at baseline, and selected into jobs that had a lower probability of computerization. On average, a one standard deviation increase in each of these traits predicted an average of 4 percentage points drop in the probability of one's job of being computerized. At the US population level, this is equivalent with saving 5.8 million people from losing their future careers to computerization. Most effects replicated across time. Path analyses showed that educational attainment mediated these effects and some direct effects remained. This highlights the importance of personality on occupational selection and in shaping the labour market. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology

DamianSpengler_2020_EJP_Negligible Effects of Birth Order on Selection into Scientific and Artistic Careers, Creativity, and Status Attainment

“…Moreover, parental SES has been shown to be strongly associated with children's future career outcomes (Damian et al, 2015;Damian et al, 2017;Heckman, 2006).…”

“…The first criterion was intended to ensure data quality; therefore, we selected only cases that were coded as "credible" by the original Project Talent team, according to their Response Credibility Index (Wise et al, 1979). This credibility index, which has been widely used in prior research using Project Talent data (e.g., Damian et al, 2017;Spengler et al, 2018), was based on several questions, such as "How many days are in a week?" that should have been easily answered barring any reading problems, clerical problems in recording answers, general slowness, or lack of cooperation.…”

“…Item responses were recorded using a 5-point scale (extremely well to not very well), but because item-level data are only available for 4% of the sample, we had to rely on the personality scale scores computed by the Project Talent staff. The full list of items and instructions for scale construction were reported in previous research (see Table 10S of the supplementary materials of Damian et al, 2017). Because the 10 PTPI scales are highly inter-correlated and to avoid multicollinearity in the present analyses, we followed previous recommendations and used the two higher order factors of the original 10 PTPI scales (Damian et al, 2017).…”

“…The full list of items and instructions for scale construction were reported in previous research (see Table 10S of the supplementary materials of Damian et al, 2017). Because the 10 PTPI scales are highly inter-correlated and to avoid multicollinearity in the present analyses, we followed previous recommendations and used the two higher order factors of the original 10 PTPI scales (Damian et al, 2017). To obtain these higher order factors, we factor analyzed the 10 scales using principal axis factoring with a varimax rotation, and we obtained two factors: Maturity and Extraversion.…”

Creating Through Deviancy or Adjustment? The Link between Personality Profile Normativeness and Creativity

“…The latter is a large longitudinal study conducted on a US representative sample. Previous literature has been published using the personality data available at baseline, at the 11th and/or at the 50th year follow-up, which are the waves that we have also employed in our analyses (Damian et al, in press;Spengler et al, in press;Damian, Spengler, & Roberts, 2017;Major, Johnson, & Deary, 2014). However, none of these papers investigated the link between personality profile normativeness and occupational creativity, and none of these papers used a measure of occupational creativity.…”