Weathered cynics might roll their eyes when a bright-eyed young thing tells them they want to change the world, but research from Harvard suggests that companies could do worse than actively appeal to these young idealists.

It’s increasingly understood that modern employees are looking for work with meaning, and are even willing to sacrifice pay in order to get it. The research argues that when people are willing to do this in order to fulfill jobs that they believe are valuable to society, the labor market is more equitable as a result.

They suggest that this is because jobs requiring at least a college degree tend to pay around two-thirds more than jobs that only require a high school education. What’s more, the number of jobs requiring a degree has doubled in the past 40 years.

Prosocial impact

The researchers found that more “prosocial” jobs reduced the pay offered to college-educated workers by around 5%, which is significant across an entire workforce.

“There’s a big debate across almost every society on how much we should allow the private sector to handle prosocial objectives,” the researchers explain. “What we saw here is that if the private sector engages in that prosocial mission, you actually have this unintended consequence of potentially lowering wage inequality in the labor markets.”

The study shows that employers can attract strong candidates by emphasizing their mission to improve society, which can offset the lower pay for some workers. This shift in the job market may eventually broaden the focus of labor market analysis, which currently mainly concentrates on wages and benefits.

The findings may have implications for companies and policymakers, showing that investing in prosocial missions can help attract quality candidates and have an impact on income inequality, which is a concern for communities and HR departments.