Working Paper: NBER ID: w25423
Authors: Haoran He; David Neumark; Qian Weng
Abstract: We explore workers’ valuation of job flexibility, using a field experiment conducted on a Chinese job board. Our experimental job ads differ randomly in offering jobs that are flexible regarding when one works (time flexibility) or where one works (place flexibility), and offering different salaries. Application rates are higher for flexible jobs, conditional on the salary offered, providing evidence that workers value job flexibility. Moreover, under some plausible conditions our evidence is informative about job seekers’ willingness to pay for flexible jobs of the types offered in the experiment, and points to fairly high valuation of the most flexible jobs.
Keywords: Job flexibility; Field experiment; Worker valuation
JEL Codes: J01
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| job flexibility (J62) | application rates (C88) |
| flexible jobs (J22) | application rates (C88) |
| lower salaries (J31) | job flexibility acceptance (J62) |
| salary levels (J31) | application rates (C88) |
| flexible job conditions (J29) | application rates (C88) |