Paying for Ideal Discretion: A Framed Field Experiment on Working Time Arrangements

The notion of the ideal worker entails being available at the employer’s discretion in terms of time. By contrast, the ability to set one’s own schedule is widely considered a cornerstone of work-life balance and job satisfaction. We provide causal evidence on the pecuniary and social valuation of discretion over work schedules. We embed our study in the context of gender and compare employee- and employer-initiated requests for changes towards greater discretion over working hours. We show that employer-initiated availability should be reflected in higher wages, but the premium is small. There appears to be no wage penalty to employee-initiated requests for work schedule autonomy. While our results lend support to the ideal worker model, they cast doubt on explanations linking gender wage inequality to labour market flexibility.