oa Risicoattitude en beroepskeuze van schoolverlaters

The role of risk attitude in the occupational choice of school leavers

This article studies the role of risk attitudes in the occupational choice. It replicates the study by Bonin, Dohmen, Falk, Huffman and Sunde (2007) for Dutch graduates from high school, college and university. We use a validated scale to measure risk attitudes of young individuals in a large representative survey of school leavers (the ROA School Leavers Survey) around the time that they start their labour market career. We relate these preferences to the earnings risk for the occupations they choose to work in. The occupational earnings risk is derived from large administrative earnings data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) which is matched to the Labour Force Survey. The analyses show that our measure of risk attitude is significantly related to actually taking financial risks. They also show that young entrants who are risk seekers are significantly more likely to start their careers in occupations that are characterized by a high earnings risk.