A 2017 paper by two economists, Alexandre Mas and Amanda Pallais, showed that working mothers with children under 4 would be willing to give up barely any pay for a flexible schedule, and would give up an average of just 15 percent of their pay to work from home. But they would forgo almost 40 percent of their income to avoid an “employer discretion” job in which their boss sets their hours at will. The problem may be more pronounced among mothers, but it isn’t unique to them: All workers in the study — men, women, parents and nonparents alike — disliked employer discretion jobs and were willing to take hefty pay cuts to avoid them.