- Do workers experience a trade-off between flexible work arrangements (with the options to work from home, or choose one’s work hours) and income?

- Does this vary by workers’ current status in employment as freelancing or in standard employment, and by gender?

- Which demographic and economic characteristics, as well as workers’ preferred and existing work Conditions, are correlated with the preference for flexible work arrangements?

We find considerable variation in the preference for more flexible work arrangements with respect to both the location of work (home or a fixed office) and the choice of hours of work. Overall, gig economy freelancers have a stronger preference for flexible work arrangements compared to those in standard employment, even when this implies lower earnings, suggesting a selection into gig work. Yet, the share of those in standard employment who would prefer more flexible work arrangements in exchange for a part of their income is considerable, suggesting that firms may be able to design compensation mechanisms informed by the mix of wages and flexible work arrangements suitable for workers. We also find that much of the variation in the preference for flexibility is not explained by worker demographics and other observable characteristics but is consistent with measures of workers’ subjective valuation of flexibility and income in their work. We conclude that offering even a modicum of flexibility can enhance workers’ utility without necessarily increasing employers’ costs and provide evidence against imposing uniform approaches to (in)flexible work arrangements.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the data collected for the survey and experiment used in this paper. Section 3 discusses the methodology including the identification strategy and the experimental design. Section 4 presents results including (a) descriptive statistics, (b) T- test results for assessing the randomized allocation of attributes in job descriptions, (c) econometric analysis, and (d) correlates and likely mechanisms of the preference for flexible work arrangements. Section 5 concludes with a discussion of results and their implications for policy.

# 1. Data

Our sample consists of 1,338 respondents of which 1,038 were freelancers and gig economy workers (subsequently referred to collectively as ‘freelancers’), and 300 were workers in standard employment. The data was collected through an online survey administered by a private survey firm, Ipsos. We partnered with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to tap into their network of digital freelancers via their Global Online Work Force (GLOW)<sup>4</sup> members (resulting in 738 respondents), as well as an online panel of 300 gig workers and 300 workers in standard employment. The data collection period lasted between February and May 2022.

The online survey questionnaire was divided into four parts: (i) respondents’ demographic background, which asks details on age, gender, schooling and marital status; (ii) employment characteristics, which asks details on respondents’ current employment such as their status in employment, occupation, duration of employment, weekly pay, and other occupations if they are working more than one job; (iii) an experimental section with sets of hypothetical job descriptions with randomly assigned attributes for the respondent to choose from; and lastly (iv) preferred work characteristics, which solicits respondents’

> 4 GLOW is a training program offered by MDEC for individuals interested in becoming a digital freelancer. During the peak of COVID-19, MDEC created a new program called GLOW _Penjana_ , a highly targeted program to help individuals whose livelihoods were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and movement restrictions.

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