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"Gregariousness and social interaction are important aspect of human life with implications also for labour markets. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to examine gregariousness and social interaction at the workplace and associated wages for Germany. Our empirical findings with samples from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) demonstrate that extravert people more often work in jobs with more social interaction. Furthermore, females tend to work more often in interactive jobs compared to males. There is evidence that gregariousness and social interaction are associated with (moderately) higher wages, except when high interaction occurs in large firms." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Gregariousness is an important aspect of human life with implications for labour market outcomes. The paper examines, to the best of our knowledge for the first time for Germany, gregariousness and social interaction at the workplace and associated wage differentials. Our empirical findings with samples from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) demonstrate that gregarious people more often work in jobs with social interaction. Furthermore, females tend to work more often in interactive jobs compared to males. There is evidence that working in an interactive job is associated with a compensating negative wage differential of 7 percent for women and non for men. Implications for wage policy are discussed.