Gender Gaps in the Valuation of Working Conditions

• Authors: Marta Curull-Sentís, Laia Maynou, Lídia Farré and Libertad González.
• BSE Working Paper: 1500 | July 25
• Keywords: gender gaps , working conditions , sexual harassment , compensating wage differentials , working flexibility , survey experiments
• JEL codes: J16, J31, J28, J81, C93

We conduct a survey experiment to examine gender differences in preferences for job attributes, including flexibility, commuting distance, and workplace climate. Both men and women are willing to trade 20–30% of their current wage to avoid inflexible jobs and long commutes. However, a notable gender difference emerges in the willingness-to-pay (WTP) to avoid sexual harassment. Women are willing to trade 50% of their wage for a secure workplace, 14 percentage points more than men. Among recent female victims, this aversion increases to 87%. These findings under-score the detrimental impact of sexual harassment on gender equality and talent allocation in the labor market.