Willing to pay for security: a discrete choice experiment to analyse labour supply preferences

This paper investigates workers’ valuations of the job attributes that distinguish atypical work arrangements from traditional employee relationships. Using a vignette-based discrete-choice module fielded to samples of UK and US workers, I estimate willingness-to-pay distributions for contract security, work-related benefits, flexibility, autonomy, and tax treatment. Across both countries, workers place substantially higher value on job security and employment protections than on flexibility-related attributes. Interestingly, this pattern holds even among the self-employed: almost two-thirds of UK self-employed workers and just under half of US self-employed workers are estimated to prefer the traditional-employment bundle. Despite institutional differences between the UK and US, average valuations are closely aligned. The heterogeneity analysis shows that most observable characteristics account for only limited variation in preferences, but risk aversion and parenthood are notable exceptions, with both substantially increasing the value workers attach to contract security.