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

Despite research linking time-related work demands to gender inequality, the literature lacks a comprehensive analysis of wage premiums and penalties associated with differing temporal demands. Using longitudinal data and fixed-effects models that address unobserved heterogeneity among workers, we examine how various temporal constraints imposed by occupations are associated with pay. Unlike prior studies, our analysis separates an individual's working hours from an occupation's expected work time. We find pay premiums attached to the requirements for long hours and meeting frequent deadlines, but we find wage penalties for occupations that require much temporal coordination and allow little work-structuring discretion. Schedule irregularity is linked to lower pay for women but higher pay for men. Thus, differing remuneration logics appear to apply to different time-related occupational demands. The analysis also indicates that the premium for the occupation's work-time expectation is lower for women, particularly professional and managerial women, even after considering their actual working hours. We suggest that employers' suspicion of women's ability to comply with their occupation's work-time norm, which is likely more pronounced for professional and managerial women, might contribute to these results.