Webinar: Macroeconomic Conditions When Young Shape Job Preferences for Life

To participate, please send an email to: ae-secr@ese.eur.nl

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 the rest

of their 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

macroeconomic conditions. 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 life.
(Joint work with Maria Cotofan, Lea Cassar, and Stephan Meier)