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The role of personality traits in predicting days lost due to illness: evidence from the World Bank’s Skills toward Employment and Productivity survey

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Abstract

This paper examined the associations between the “big-five” personality traits (i.e., extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, stability and agreeableness) and days lost due to illness or health problems using data from the World Bank’s Skills toward Employment and Productivity survey on Ghana. Based on the distribution of the dependent variable (days lost due to illness), a standard binary logistic regression technique was employed. In addition, to check the robustness of our results, the negative binomial and ordinary least squares regression techniques were used. The findings showed that females are more likely to report days lost due to illness than males. Consistent with existing literature, stability was found to be inversely associated with number of days lost due to illness. Additionally, openness was found to be inversely related to the number of days lost due to illness suggesting that individuals who are more curious, novel, cultivated, aesthetic, sensitive, independent minded, intellectual and creative are less likely to report days lost due to illness. These findings add to the growing evidence that personality traits are associated with life outcomes and can be used to predict self-reported health outcomes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Banking and Finance, University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana

    Ibrahim Mohammed

  2. Department of Economics, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana

    Wassiuw Abdul Rahaman & Priscilla Twumasi Baffour

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  1. Ibrahim Mohammed
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  2. Wassiuw Abdul Rahaman
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  3. Priscilla Twumasi Baffour
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Correspondence to Wassiuw Abdul Rahaman.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Figs. 2, 3 and Tables 4, 5, 6, 7.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Density of days lost

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Fig. 3
figure 3

Density of days lost by gender

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Table 4 Logit regression estimates for days lost due to illness
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Table 5 OLS regression estimates for days lost due to illness
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Table 6 Negative binomial regression estimates of number of days lost due to illness
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Table 7 Test of differences in mean of personality traits variables
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Mohammed, I., Abdul Rahaman, W. & Twumasi Baffour, P. The role of personality traits in predicting days lost due to illness: evidence from the World Bank’s Skills toward Employment and Productivity survey. Int Rev Econ 67, 163–188 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-019-00336-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-019-00336-7

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