Choosing to Work Part-Time – Combinations of Motives and the Role of Preferences and Constraints

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of motives for part-time work and discuss the role of preferences and constraints by studying combinations of motives for part-time work in a case where the scope for preferences is great. The data was derived from a survey of full-time employees in a Swedish municipality who have opted to work part-time with lower salary. Eight groups of part-time workers with different combinations of motives were identified using cluster analysis. Although formally all of these employees were voluntarily working part-time, to a greater or lesser extent the preference for part-time can be understood as an accommodation to constraints for all of the eight clusters. Even though the motives were complex, for many, part-time work was a strategy to cope with a high workload in relation to their own health and capacity.

Reducing weekly working hours: Temporal strategies and changes in the organization and experiences of work-Results from a qualitative study of a 30-hour workweek experiment

“…These norms help regulate, coordinate, and synchronize societal processes. Other norms related to time and work are the ideal worker/fulltime worker norm (Björk et al, 2020), gender-typical expectations and gendered time norms (such as women being more involved with care) (Coser, 1991;Epstein, 2004) and the belief that it is best to do things monochronically, meaning one thing at a time often in a scheduled manner (Bluedorn, 2002). Time structures and time norms exist on collective levels (societal, institutional, and organizational), but impact individuals' experiences of time, they are the building blocks for the temporal organization of work and produce the experience of work (Fine, 1996).…”