Telecommuting Nurses and Teachers with Flexible Schedules? The Meaning-Flexibility Tradeoff and the Gender Gap in Compensation

Differences in job amenities are an important dimension of gender inequality in compensation. We examine gender differences in levels and valuations of workplace flexibility and work meaning and study the relation between these amenities. We find that women value meaning and flexibility more, but work less flexible jobs than men. We explain this anomaly by showing that meaningful jobs are less flexible because they require more interpersonal interaction. We then calculate equivalent wages that incorporate levels and valuations of meaning and flexibility. While the gender gap in meaning-equivalent wages is substantially smaller than the gap in observed wages, the gap in flexibility-equivalent wages is not. Finally, we perform a counterfactual exercise which shows that reducing the meaning-flexibility trade-off implies a significantly smaller gender gap in equivalent wages, particularly at the lowest end of the wage distribution