Flexible Formal Work Schedule Arrangements
RCTReview
Rigid formal working hours force women with domestic care obligations into informal jobs, exacerbating female labor market vulnerability and gender income gaps.
Picture this
Imagine a commuter train that departs at exactly 8:00 AM every morning with no exceptions. If a passenger must drop off a child at school at 8:05 AM, she can never board the train and is forced to take an unsafe hitchhike. Adding flexible boarding times allows her to ride the official train without abandoning her family responsibilities.
What the evidence says
Women were willing to forgo higher wages in exchange for job schedule flexibility, and providing remote/flexible formal work arrangements led to significant increases in female labor force participation.
- Who was studied
- Female job seekers and working mothers in Colombia (Bustelo et al., 2020) and urban women in India (Ho et al., 2024; Jalota and Ho, 2024).
- How
- Willingness-to-pay discrete choice experiment and field experiment RCTs.
What to do
Legally define flexible working hour arrangements and remote option clauses within formal employment contracts to retain female workers.
From the source
"Therefore, offering more flexible formal jobs, with the option of adjusting working hours and remote working, could encourage women to leave the informal sector."
JOI_Brazil_Evidence_in_Labor_Market_Policies_and_Implications_for.pdf