Some of the gender pay gap between men and women is driven by how unpredictable their schedules are, according to research published July 1 in The Harvard Business Review.
The gender pay gap means that in 2022 women still earn 17 percent less than men. Even when many common explanations for the gap are eliminated, like women being overrepresented in lower-paid professions and managers holding unconscious or conscious bias, the gap still exists with women earning 89 cents for every dollar a man earns.
The researchers found that when they controlled for all common explanations of the gender gap, that prevailing 11 cent gap was being driven by unpredictable schedules. The more uncontrollable and unconventional a worker's schedule was, the greater the gender gap. Women were more likely than men to have such schedules as they more often had to fulfill domestic duties like arranging appointments and caring for children or the elderly.