Childhood creativity has a positive impact on earnings in adulthood, new study finds

Creative people reach higher levels of educational attainment, are more likely to find employment and earn more during their careers, according to research published in the CAGE working paper series.

The Creativity Premium by David Gill and Victoria Prowse (Department of Economics, University of Purdue) uses rich longitudinal data to study the relationship between people’s childhood creativity, individual attributes and life outcomes.

The findings suggest interventions to improve creative thinking in education settings could have substantial positive economic impact. A focus on problem solving, developing ideas, and challenging assumptions could prepare children better for working life and play a vital role in raising productivity and increasing economic growth.

What is creativity, and why is it important?

Creativity is the ability to produce ideas and solutions that are useful or appropriate to given situations.

Increasing use of technology and automation in the workplace is reducing the demand for routine-based jobs. As a result, critical thinking and problem solving are becoming more valuable skills. Increasingly, workers need to draw on existing knowledge and experience and to demonstrate adaptability to thrive in the labour market.

Where was the data taken from?

The research draws on data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) following around 18,500 British-born individuals born in the first full week of March 1958. What is interesting about this project is that it longitudinally tracks the same individuals at multiple stages throughout their life – at ages 7,11,16,33,42,50 and 55 – giving the researchers a working life’s worth of insights to study.

How does the study measure creativity?

At the age of seven, teachers evaluated the creativity of the cohort members in their class on a five-point scale running from ‘outstandingly creative’ to ‘below average’. Teachers were told to model their scorings on a bell curve distribution which places 40% in the middle category and only 5% in the top and bottom percentiles.

Unlike formal qualifications such as the Raven Cognitive Ability Test, which is proven to favour mathematical thinking, ratings were at the discretion of the teachers who had received a briefing on the definition of a creative individual.

The authors use a benchmark measure of ‘cognitive ability’ to compare the effects of creativity against. The measure of ‘cognitive ability’ is taken from the results of five general Maths and English exams sat by cohort members at ages seven and eleven.

What did the results show?

The authors found that, over the course of a working life, it pays to be creative. Childhood creativity correlates with stronger academic performance at ages 16 and 18, and at university level. People who demonstrate creativity in childhood are also more likely to be employed in adulthood and earn more.

Creative people also tend to hold better quality jobs. Statistically, creatives are more flexible within the labour market, while purely ‘cognitively able’ people tend to select jobs that require specific qualifications. As a result, they often lack transferable skills, a vital component of employability. Creative individuals therefore can access a wider range of jobs and are subsequently more likely to get promoted.

What are the policy implications?

The authors suggest a more holistic view of education is needed, and interventions should be put in place to encourage creativity amongst young people. Childhood creativity can be developed through greater emphasis on learning through experience, hands on play and tasks that require independent judgement with no right or wrong answer. A similar focus could also be adopted in workplace training.

By reshaping how we value creativity in both school and work, we could see significant improvements in economic outcomes for society. Successfully harnessing creativity could therefore induce real economic gains.

References:

Prowse, V and Gill, D. (2022). The Creativity Premium. CAGE working paper (no.618).

Skillicorn, N. (2021) Podcast S6E134: The impact of childhood creativity on adult earnings, YouTube. (Accessed: October 2, 2022).