by Elizabeth King

This paper uses measures of cognitive and noncognitive (socioemotional) skills in an expanded definition of human capital to examine how schooling and skills are rewarded in the labor markets in nine middle-income countries and how skill differences relate to the gender gap in earnings. While years of schooling still explain more of the variation in earnings, cognitive and noncognitive skills determine earnings as well.  The earnings of both men and women benefit from noncognitive skills such as openness to new experiences and risk-taking behavior, but schooling and cognitive skills appear more important for women’s earnings at the lower and middle end of the earnings distribution.   

Based on a paper by Gunewardena, King and Valerio (2018)