Jason Collins passes along this not-surprising result from a study by Michael Daly and others.
Analyzing unemployment data from two nationally representative British cohorts (N = 16,780), we found that low self-control in childhood was associated with the emergence and persistence of unemployment across four decades. On average, a 1-SD increase in self-control was associated with a reduction in the probability of unemployment of 1.4 percentage points after adjustment for intelligence, social class, and gender. From labor-market entry to middle age, individuals with low self-control experienced 1.6 times as many months of unemployment as those with high self-control.
This is one reason that it will be difficult to disentangle the effect of single parenting on economic outcomes. If parents of out-of-wedlock children have less self-control than married parents, and if self-control is somewhat heritable, then one could observe poor outcomes for children of single-parent families even if the family environments are not a problem.
I have spent much time trying to think on a way for friends with very low self control and hostility toward bosses to earn a living. Picking up cans does not earn enough organic farming they cannot get the land because it requiters a loan. Piece work picking fruits you got get out to the farms. Nothing yet.
This is interesting- are poor self-control and hostility to bosses related? Maybe self-control is misnamed. My child is exquisitely controlled when playing a game, but uncontrollable when we make them turn it off to do some arbitrary thing the adult chooses (e.g get ready for school).
Art that interests them, in its broadest form like making jewelry to sell, seems one avenue.
Or you could get new friends 😉
My talented welder friend could be making doctor money. Intelligence isn’t a problem. It is psychological- bosses, stifling work customs, lack of creative expression, etc.
They had the same schooling everyone I know had. In fact, he took welding at the vocational school, so that is a plus. So my version of the null hypothesis is that we are applying efforts to the wrong goals.
Interesting, because we’re told that hyper successful people have trouble being bossed around or directed by others. Thus they became their OWN bosses. They’re such rebels!
Of course they also have lots of self control…
And there are a lot of handymen, thank goodness. It takes all kinds.
What makes you think it’s possible for them to earn a living? It seems pretty clear to me that there exist, in increasing numbers, people whose labor, even at its comparative-advantage optimum and with as much training as they can absorb, has less value than their (minimal) cost of living, and so are and will always be a net cost to society, surviving only through the largesse (voluntary or involuntary) of others.
What else would be rolled into self-control besides time preference?
ability to show up on time for work, ability to not throw a tantrum at the boss, patience with customers, …
There are some funny exceptions Arnold – I worked a long time in a software house where
(a) people came and went as they pleased,
(b) people – including me – could be very very abrasive, and
(c) so long as you had the right skills and delivered working code/designs etc., you got paid really really big bucks.
But to do all of that required powers of concentration and focus and persistence, the ability to work through very complex tasks, and the ability to deal with a pretty large cadre of other difficult people.
By the way, sometimes the bosses threw the tantrums…
All of that was, perhaps, very special, like being in the NFL or something.
I’ve employed quite a number of people with poor self control. In our semi flexible workplace they are able to mange time and bosses ok much of the time. The problem I’ve seen is they need to manage some many other areas that too often they get tripped up over time.
Good employee example one, almost three years working for us. Took some time to find the right job as he was always messing with the machines. Found his spot and did well for some time. Eventually started to fall asleep on the job. Got a couple warnings and couldn’t correct so out he went.
Good employee number two. Had a drug problem. Managed it well for a couple years, then met a girl, relapsed and started to come to work when convinient.
Probably one third of the 100+ people I’ve hired have been like this. OK for a while, learning, getting along with people, getting a chance to build a skill and get some raises. Then ‘things fall apart’ a few bad decisions are made and their life takes a turn for the worst. Classic ‘bad luck’.
**
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
Employment attributes tend to be multiplicative – a zero on conscientiousness can cancel out many other positive attributes – but a very high skill level can overcome other deficits (there is no other explanation for my own success). So we mostly have to be worried about *low-skill* workers who are also not conscientious, or clean, or polite, or punctual.