The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 107 No. 6 2025
High-Pressure, High-Paying Jobs?
Abstract
Work-related stress has reportedly increased over time. Using worker-level survey and experimental data, we investigate the labor market consequences of work pressure. We build a measure of pressure strongly associated with adverse health outcomes and show that pressure comes with a sizable earnings premium, reflecting workers’ willingness-to-pay to avoid pressure. As expected, we do not find a premium among civil servants who face strong labor market frictions. Our experimental evidence is consistent with workers sorting into high-pressure jobs and with a sizable market-level compensating differential. Differences in the prevalence and valuation of work pressure explain substantial shares of wage inequality.
- DOI
- 10.1162/rest_a_01362
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1471-1484
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex crossref