(Sweden), Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany), and Maastricht University (the Netherlands) for their useful comments on previous drafts. Thomas Dohmen acknowledges funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for the project “Sorting into incentive systems: how gender and preference heterogeneity affect career choice, earnings, work stress and well-being ” (452-10-006). 2 We relate risk attitudes and patience of young graduates from high-school, college and university, measured around the time that they start their labor market career in a large representative survey, to the riskiness and timing of earnings in the occupations they choose to work in. We find a systematic positive and significant relation between willi...