Why do you like or dislike your job?

Abstract

This study investigates the relative importance of non-wage job attributes, with a particular focus on corporate culture and overtime work. Using a discrete choice experiment with 3,026 wage workers in South Korea, we estimate the willingness-to-pay for a horizontal corporate culture, no overtime requirement, career development opportunities, and commuting time flexibility. We find that workers place the highest value on a horizontal corporate culture, followed by no overtime requirement. Using auxiliary data on working conditions from a nationally representative survey, we find that accounting for the non-uniform distribution of these non-wage job attributes across workers exacerbates compensation inequality.