Expanding remote work and flexible job perks may actually make the gender pay gap wider rather than smaller.
Because women tend to value non-wage amenities like flexibility more than men do, they are more willing to 'pay' for them in the form of lower salaries. The research shows that these preferences account for 40% of the pay gap, meaning more workplace flexibility can paradoxically lead to a larger salary divide.
Job Search, Job Amenities, and the Gender Pay Gap
SSRN · 6502498
This paper studies gender gaps in labor-market outcomes, with a focus on job ladder dynamics. We show that women experience substantially lower wage growth conditional on prior wages despite nearly identical job-to-job transition rates for men and women. To reconcile these observations, we document gender differences in the valuation of nonwage job amenities and in job search behavior, and develop a multi-dimensional job-ladder model with endogenous search effort where workers value both wages a