Time Is Money? Wage Premiums and Penalties for Time-Related Occupational Demands

Area of Science:

• Sociology
• Labor Economics
• Gender Studies

Background:

• Existing research links time-related work demands to gender inequality.
• A comprehensive analysis of wage premiums and penalties for temporal demands is lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze how occupational temporal constraints are associated with worker pay.
• To differentiate between individual working hours and occupational work-time expectations.
• To investigate gender-based differences in pay related to temporal demands.

Main Methods:

• Utilized longitudinal data for comprehensive analysis.
• Employed fixed-effects models to control for unobserved worker heterogeneity.
• Separated individual working hours from occupational work-time expectations.

Main Results:

• Pay premiums observed for long hours and frequent deadlines.
• Wage penalties found for occupations with high temporal coordination needs and low work-structuring discretion.
• Schedule irregularity impacts pay differently for men and women (lower for women, higher for men).
• Occupational work-time expectation premium is lower for women, particularly in professional and managerial roles.

Conclusions:

• Remuneration logics differ across various time-related occupational demands.
• Gender disparities in pay related to temporal demands persist, potentially due to employer perceptions of women's compliance with work-time norms.
• Further research is needed to understand the nuanced relationship between work time, gender, and pay.