It has been suggested that inequalities in personality are implicated in the intergenerational transmission of inequality

Inequality in personality over the life cycle. Miriam Gensowski, Mette Gørtz, Stefanie Schurer. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 184, April 2021, Pages 46-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2021.01.018

Rolf Degen's take: Personality traits are similarly unequally distributed as wealth, and the former could be a cause of the latter

Chart: Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill)

Abstract: We document gender and socioeconomic inequalities in personality over the life cycle (age 18–75), using the Big Five 2 (BFI-2) inventory linked to administrative data on a large Danish population. We estimate life-cycle profiles non-parametrically and adjust for cohort and sample-selection effects. We find that: (1) Women of all ages score more highly than men on all personality traits, including three that are positively associated with wages; (2) High-education groups score more favorably on Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism than low-education groups, while there is no socioeconomic inequality by Conscientiousness; (3) Over the life cycle, gender and socioeconomic gaps remain constant, with two exceptions: the gender and SES gaps in Openness to Experience widen, while gender differences in Neuroticism, a trait associated with worse outcomes, diminish with age. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of gender wage gaps, household production models, and optimal taxation.

Keywords: InequalityPersonalityBig Five-2 InventoryLife cycle dynamicsGender disadvantageSocioeconomic disadvantage