Valuing personal safety and the gender earnings gap

Oscar Becerra and Jose-Alberto Guerra

No 18900, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: Are there gender differences in the willingness to pay (WTP) for safer jobs? Using a laboratory experiment, we elicit participants’ WTP for an early (perceived ‘safer’) on-site shift. We find that women forego larger earnings in order to secure an early shift more than men do, with a safety concern about the late shift being a key driver, explaining up to 20% of the estimated gender gap. We do not observe a gender gap if the job can be completed remotely. Results are robust to controlling for morning-types, household and demographic characteristics, attitudes toward risk and uncertainty, victimization, and information provision about crime. Controlling for crime exposure reduces the estimated gender gap. Thus, our results suggest that policies that reduce gender disparities in safety concerns may affect women’s labor supply.

Keywords: Safety concerns; willingness to pay; gender gaps; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C92 D03 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51
Date: 2021-02-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-gen and nep-lab
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:018900

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