The Price of Long Hours

Thimo De Schouwer, Sebastiaan Maes and Tom Potoms

No 12779, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Earnings premiums for long hours vary across occupations, shaping gender sorting and inequality. The leading explanation emphasizes firm-side production technologies, yet hours and wages are equilibrium outcomes reflecting worker preferences and market structure. We build a directed search-and-matching model that allows us to decompose the premium. Premiums compensate for the disutility of long hours and bargaining power; productivity explains little in Tech, where premiums approach 20%. This disutility is highest among women, who sort away from long-hours jobs; these amenity differences account for 22% of the gender earnings gap. In counterfactuals, general-equilibrium responses through market tightness substantially change policy impacts.

Keywords: long hours; earnings premium; search and matching; directed search (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 E24 J16 J31 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12779

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