SMU SOE Seminar Series (December 2, 2025): Hours, Sorting, and the Stalling Gender Convergence

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ABSTRACT

The gender wage gap in the United States has stalled since the 1990s after decades of convergence, with most of the slowdown concentrated at the top of the skill distribution. This paper proposes a new explanation for the stalling gender convergence based on increasing returns to working longer hours and quantifies its macroeconomic implications. We develop a sorting model with endogenous hours choices and nonlinear returns to hours. Hours constraints arising from social norms or caregiving responsibilities limit workers' ability to supply long hours and distort the allocation of workers across jobs. We use the estimated model to quantify how gender differences in hours constraints affect inequality, misallocation, and welfare.