WORKER EFFORT DECISIONS AND EFFICIENT GENDER-SPECIFIC WAGE-TENURE PROFILES

Despite theoretical arguments that predict the opposite, empirical est imates of workers' returns to tenure tend to be greater for female tha n fm male workers. This paper develops an agency model of wage contrac ts to explain this empirical finding. If male and female workers diffe r only in the expected length of their working lives, efficient wage-t enure profiles are steeper for women than men as a direct result of th eir shorter working life. This result implies that returns to tenure f or women and men will become comparable as women's and men's labor for ce attachments converge.