An employee who is willing to work at all hours, in the evenings, week ends, vacations, is uncall at the office, is the worker who gets big rewards. doubling the number of hours more than doubles the earnings. Working more now will mean that you get the big rewards later. So for two educated, ambitious parents, what claudiu sees happening is that one person stays with the greedy job, and the other person cuts back her hours or to a more flexible firm.