Workplace Presenteeism, Job Substitutability and Gender Inequality

Ghazala Azmat, Lena Hensvik and Olof Rosenqvist
Additional contact information
Lena Hensvik: Uppsala Universitet [Uppsala]
Olof Rosenqvist: IFAU

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This paper explores how the parenthood wage penalty is partially explained by an increased within-couple gap in job uniqueness (i.e., the within-establishment substitutability of workers). Uniqueness is rewarded with higher wages, but it requires worker presenteeism (i.e., the lack of unpredictable work absences), which entails a higher cost of childbearing. Using a within-couple event study approach, we show that after the arrival of the first child, women take more days of absence than men and their likelihood of holding jobs with low substitutability decreases. We find that 15 years after childbearing, the male-female gender gap in holding a (higher-paying) unique jobs increases by 6 percentage points. The results suggest that structural changes towards greater work flexibility, making it less costly for workers in unique jobs not to be present, can help to reduce the parenthood wage penalty.

Keywords: Work absence; Job substitutability; Gender wage inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-hrm and nep-ltv
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03873809
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Journal of Human Resources, 2023, 48 (4), ⟨10.3368/jhr.1121-12014R2⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03873809/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Workplace Presenteeism, Job Substitutability and Gender Inequality (2023)
Working Paper: Workplace Presenteeism, Job Substitutability and Gender Inequality (2021)
Working Paper: Workplace Presenteeism, Job Substitutability and Gender Inequality (2021)
Working Paper: Workplace Presenteeism, Job Substitutability and Gender Inequality (2021)
Working Paper: Workplace Presenteeism, Job Substitutability and Gender Inequality (2020)
Working Paper: Workplace presenteeism, job substitutability and gender inequality (2020)
Working Paper: Workplace Presenteeism, Job Substitutability and Gender Inequality (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03873809

DOI: 10.3368/jhr.1121-12014R2

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().