Lower monetary returns for that many overtime hours? Forget it!

This study uses the Statistics Canada Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) to test gender earnings disparities for management and professional employees who work hours in excess of the full-time weekly standard. The hypothesis is that lower unpaid overtime hours for women leads to a lower overall earnings profile compared to men, despite the achievement of relatively high labour market status. A rat race theory is advanced, which proposes that the majority of women face discrimination in their attempts to compete with men in the labour market based on overtime hours. The econometric analysis, which considers both supply-side and demand-side causal variables, confirms that women's hours over and above the standard workweek significantly influence earnings. However, a unique decomposition technique reveals that men clearly have a more favorable pay structure on the higher echelons of the labour market, while women are forced into inefficiently excessive hours.