The gender wage gap in an online labour market: the cost of interruptions

This paper analyses gender differences in working patterns and wages on Amazon Mechanical Turk, a popular online labour platform. Using information on 2 million tasks, we find no gender differences in task selection nor experience. Nonetheless, women earn 20% less per hour on average. Gender differe...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Adams-Prassl, ACG, Hara, K, Milland, K, Callison-Burch, C
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: MIT Press 2023
Description
Summary:This paper analyses gender differences in working patterns and wages on Amazon Mechanical Turk, a popular online labour platform. Using information on 2 million tasks, we find no gender differences in task selection nor experience. Nonetheless, women earn 20% less per hour on average. Gender differences in working patterns are a significant driver of this wage gap. Women are more likely to interrupt their working time on the platform with consequences for their task completion speed. A follow-up survey shows that the gender differences in working patterns and hourly wages are concentrated amongst workers with children.