This paper investigates how housing demolition affects labor supply using the China Family Panel Studies, a nationally representative household survey from China. We argue that housing demolition is likely to be random across households within the same community. We find that housing demolition reduces overall labor force participation by ~3.3 percentage points and farm work participation by ~4.4 percentage points. We also find that the negative impact on labor force participation is mainly driven by older people, women, less‐educated people, and people living in rural regions. The negative impact of housing demolition on labor force participation persists over time.

This paper estimates the relationship between personality traits measured by the “Big Five Model” and occupational status with a nationally representative household survey from China. I find that four of the five personality traits except extraversion are significantly associated with occupational status in terms of occupational choices, occupational prestige, and socioeconomic status. In particular, conscientiousness is the most important predictor among the five dimensions of personality traits. The findings also suggest that the returns of personality traits to occupational status are higher for females.