Career choice as an extended spatial evolutionary public goods game. (August 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cheng, Yuan; Xue, Yanbo; Chang, Meng
• Is Part Of: Chaos, solitons and fractals. Volume 137(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-08
• Subjects: Career choice -- Spatial evolutionary game theory -- Public goods game -- Social welfare; Chaotic behavior in systems -- Periodicals; Solitons -- Periodicals; Fractals -- Periodicals; Chaotic behavior in systems; Fractals; Solitons; Periodicals; 003.7
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2020.109856
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0960-0779

Abstract

Highlights: We developed a spatial evolutionary public goods game model to study the dynamics of career choice. When employee productivity of public work is low, people are more willing to enter the private sector. Provisions of subsidy to the public sector with low productivity can result in a decline in social output. This work provides a new insight into understanding individual career choices. Abstract: We propose an extended spatial evolutionary public goods game (SEPGG) model to study the dynamics of individual career choice and the corresponding social output. Based on the social value orientation theory, we study the game dynamics of players choosing from two types of work, namely the public work if it serves public interests, and the private work if it serves personal interests. Under the context of SEPGG, choosing public work is to cooperate and choosing private work is to defect. We then investigate the effects of employee productivity, human capital and external subsidies on individual career choices of the two work types, as well as the overall social welfare. From simulation results, we found that when employees have low productivity, they are more willing to enter the private sector. Although this will make both the effort level and human capital of individuals doing private work higher than those engaging in public work, the total outcome of the private sector is still lower than that of the public sector with a low level of public subsidies. When the employee productivity is higher for public work, a certain amount of subsidy can greatly improve system output. On the contrary, when employees in the public sector have low productivity, increasing the subsidy can result in a decline in social output.