The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits

• DOI: 10.3368/jhr.43.4.972
• Publication Date: 2015-07-30T19:15:50Z
• Authors: Lex Borghans; Angela Lee Duckworth; James J. Heckman; Bas ter Weel
• Keywords: 0211 other engineering and technologies; 02 engineering and technology; 01 natural sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; 5. Gender equality; 11. Sustainability; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; 10. No inequality; 2. Zero hunger; 4. Education; 05 social sciences; 1. No poverty; 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences; 16. Peace & justice; 3. Good health; 0506 political science; 8. Economic growth; 12. Responsible consumption; 03 medical and health sciences; 0502 economics and business; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; 0101 mathematics; 9. Industry and infrastructure; 0402 animal and dairy science; 0503 education

The decision to attend university is influenced by a large set of factors, ranging from economic considerations that affect affordability to family characteristics such as parental education levels. We examine the relationship between university participation and various economic and non-economic variables over the past twenty-five years in Canada. We quantify the importance of the various factors in the data sets available to us in order to understand trends in university participation and, in particular, to take account of the increasingly greater propensity of young women than men to attend university.