|
Field
Abstract
|
Before
This paper studies the effects of introducing flexible work arrangements on female labor force participation and gender norms. In a field experiment with 1,670 households, we test the impact of offering flexible jobs to women currently outside of the labor force. We find three sets of results. First, flexible work arrangements dramatically increase take up of work: the take up rate for the most flexible job is 228% higher than the take up rate of an office job (15%). Randomly varying specific dimensions of job flexibility shows that the ability to multitask work with childcare and to work from home are the deciding factors in labor supply for many women, particularly those from more traditional households. Second, work experience shifts the gender attitudes of women and their children to become less traditional, and experience with flexible jobs increases willingness to accept inflexible jobs after the intervention. Lastly, despite women’s increased labor supply under flexible work arrangements, employers may choose not to offer flexible jobs more frequently due to negative worker selection and negative effects on productivity.
|
After
This paper studies the effects of introducing flexible work arrangements on female labor force participation and gender norms. In a field experiment with 1,670 households, we test the impact of offering flexible jobs to women currently outside of the labor force. We find three sets of results. First, flexible work-from-home jobs are highly effective at bringing out-of-labor-force women into paid work. Job flexibility more than triples take up from 15% for an office job to 48% for a job that women can do from home while multitasking with childcare. Second, these flexible work-from-home jobs can also act as a stepping stone to less flexible work. The opportunity to try paid work from home increases women's take up of office-based jobs two to three months later. This opportunity to have a "gateway job" may be especially important for women from traditional households: job flexibility is more important to the labor supply of more traditional women, and work experience in turn shifts the gender attitudes of these women to become less traditional. Third, work-from-home comes with tradeoffs. It selects for less productive workers and causes workers to complete tasks more slowly and less accurately. However, these drawbacks are outweighed by the large positive extensive margin labor supply response to work-from-home. Thus, flexible work arrangements can both attract women to the labor force and provide a gateway to outside-the-home jobs.
|
|
Field
Last Published
|
Before
September 16, 2023 04:57 PM
|
After
October 31, 2024 04:35 PM
|
|
Field
Public Data URL
|
Before
|
After
https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JBVUO1
|
|
Field
Is there a restricted access data set available on request?
|
Before
|
After
No
|
|
Field
Program Files
|
Before
|
After
No
|
|
Field
Is data available for public use?
|
Before
|
After
Yes
|
|
Field
Intervention End Date
|
Before
September 17, 2022
|
After
January 31, 2023
|
|
Field
Intervention (Hidden)
|
Before
|
After
We randomly assign women from 1,670 lower-middle-income households in a mix of urban, peri-urban, and rural areas to either receive a job offer or to a control condition with no job offer. Among those receiving job offers, we introduce variation along three dimensions of job flexibility: (1) the ability to choose one’s work hours each day, (2) the ability to combine working with childcare, and (3) the ability to work from home. All jobs are part-time, last for one month, and are offered in partnership with Karya, a Microsoft Research spinoff company that distributes smartphone-based data tasks to gig workers in India. The job involves tasks that contribute to Bangla or Hindi datasets that can train language models. In order to separately estimate the effects of flexible work arrangements on job performance versus worker composition, after participants have decided to accept or reject their job offer, we randomly select half of the participants who accepted a less flexible job to be surprised with an upgrade to the most flexible job.
|