Multidimensional Skills on LinkedIn Profiles: Measuring Human Capital and the Gender Skill Gap

Abstract

We measure human capital using the self-reported skill sets of nearly 9 million U.S. college graduates from professional profiles on LinkedIn. We aggregate skill strings into 48 clusters of general, occupation-specific, and managerial skills. Multidimensional skills can account for several important labor-market patterns. First, the number and composition of skills are systematically related to measures of human-capital investment such as education and work experience. The number of skills increases with experience, and the average age-skill profile closely resembles the well-established concave age-earnings profile. Second, workers who report more skills, especially specific and managerial ones, hold higher-paid jobs. Skill differences account for more earnings variation than detailed measures of education and experience. Third, we document a sizable gender gap in skills that appears consistent with slower skill accumulation when women reduce work hours due to motherhood. These gender differences in skills rationalize a substantial proportion of the gender gap in job-based earnings. Joint paper with David Dorn, Florian Schoner, Moritz Seebacher, and Lisa Simon.