Diversity in Work: The Heterogeneity of Women's Employment Patterns

Abstract

Employment patterns are gender-driven, yet analyses of women's employment have yet to explain this diversity across time. This article examines the variation in women's employment patterns across time and across countries. It focuses on the effects of individual differences in educational level, marital status and motherhood in The Netherlands, Germany and the UK across four birth cohorts for the period 1992-2002. The results from a quantitative study using panel data confirm the diversity in women's employment. At the same time, cross-country variation is evident. While the results of this study confirm the diversity evident in women's employment patterns, they also attempt to explain the nature of this diversity. The analyses presented in this article demonstrate that the diversity in women's employment is persistent, yet dynamic. Furthermore, the diversity in employment is clearly marked by the division between parental and non-parental employment, which has important implications for our theoretical understanding of women's employment.

Part-time or Full-time Employment: Choices and Constraints

“…Several studies show that women are more likely to assume care responsibilities and that employment patterns are highly gendered. Women are more likely than men to work part-time, even across a variety of age groups (Duncan, 2005;OECD, 2015;Statistics Norway, 2010;Yerkes, 2010).…”

“…Other studies also show that balancing work and family is easier when children are older (Craig & Sawrikar, 2009). The lack of childcare or lack of flexibility in opening hours or inconvenient school hours restricts the nurses' full-time employment, as the studies of Kangas and Rostgaard (2007) and Yerkes (2010) suggest.…”

“…From opportunities and constraints perspective, it means that an acceptable cultural view of working mothers can act as an opportunity, and a negative perception of working mothers can be understood as a constraint (Pfau-Effinger, 2004). Accordingly, the choices women make regarding the hours they work are not necessarily the results of personal preferences, but can as easily be based on the absence of alternative jobs that make it possible to combine work and family (Crompton, 2006;Mandel & Semyonov, 2006;Yerkes, 2010). Giddens' structuration theory (1984) bridges the preference and structural perspective and can be a relevant frame for analyzing the situation for female nurses in the Norwegian labor market.…”

“…This perspective points out the importance of alternative job opportunities, one's own (family) financial resources, and how easy it is to combine work and family on the organisation and institutional levels (Lewis, 2009;McRae, 2003). For example, lack of childcare and inconvenient school hours may limit maternal employment, especially full-time employment (Kangas & Rostgaard, 2007;Yerkes, 2010). Cultural factors such as collective and social understandings about what the proper relationship between motherhood and paid work is, will also influence women's working-hours.…”

“…One set of constraints is referred to as structural (Crompton, 2006;Reed & Blunsdon, 2006;Yerkes, 2010). The structure-oriented perspective claims that the differences concerning women's working hours are determined by the specific situation they are in.…”