Does personality matter? : the impact of the Big Five on the migrant and gender wage gaps

We investigate whether the Big Five Personality Dimensions contribute to explaining gender and migrant wage gaps by using a linked employer-employee dataset. We expand the scarce literature concerning personality traits and gender wage gaps in Germany and we provide first evidence for the relationship between the Big Five and the migrant wage gap. Our results reveal that the genders differ in their average personality traits, as do migrants and natives. Further, we find significant associations between the Big Five and wages. The magnitude of this relationship varies across the gender and the migratory status. The results of Oaxaca-Blinder wage decompositions suggest that the Big Five significantly contribute to explaining gender and migrant wage gaps.