A new study has found that Danish women are more likely to choose a job with ‘family-friendly’ conditions after they become parents, even if it means accepting lower pay.
The study, by independent research firm Rockwool Fonden, found that when women were asked whether they would choose a family-friendly job over a high-paying job, they would choose the family-friendly job 39% of the time.
The research, which drew on wage and job data from 1.8 million individuals in the Danish labour market, coupled with survey responses from 1,000 men and women, asked participants to choose between hypothetical jobs with different salaries and working conditions, to determine how much they were willing to trade pay for flexibility.
This included assessing benefits such as workplace flexibility, the choice of working location, and the absence of evening work or ‘on-call’ requirements. In doing so, the study tracked how men’s and women’s perceptions of the ‘quality’ of a job change after they become parents.
Job choices
Commenting on the study, Nabanita Datta Gupta, professor of economics at Aarhus University, said, “Men’s job preferences do not change significantly when they become fathers. But when women become mothers, they instead choose jobs that can fit in with having a family – even if it costs money. It is significant that in our study we see that women to such a large extent prefer a family-friendly job to a higher salary.”
By assigning a monetary value to job benefits and including them in the calculation of total compensation, the researchers estimate that the gap between men’s and women’s gross earnings shrinks from around 21% to about 13%. Overall, the difference in total pay packages is estimated to be about 40% smaller than what is suggested by salary figures alone.
“This shows that the difference between men’s and women’s wages is significantly lower than that observed in more traditional studies, where the value of job benefits is not included,” Datta Gupta added.
“A significant part of the reason for the salary decrease that mothers typically experience after giving birth is due to the choice of job benefits. Companies, decision-makers and families themselves must be aware of the consequences for women’s careers, finances and pension assets of choosing to be family-friendly in their jobs to such an extent.” Read more here.
