Working for less? Women's part-time wage penalties across countries

Abstract

This paper investigates wage gaps between part- and full-time women workers in six OECD countries in the mid-1990s. Using comparable micro-data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), for Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the US, the paper first assesses cross-national variation in the direction, magnitude, and composition of the part-time/full-time wage differential. Then it analyzes variations across these countries in occupational segregation between part- and full-time workers. The paper finds a part-time wage penalty among women workers in all countries, except Sweden. Other than in Sweden, occupational differences between part- and full-time workers dominate the portion of the wage gap that is explained by observed differences between the two groups of workers. Across countries, the degree of occupational segregation between female part- and full-time workers is negatively correlated with the position of part-time workers' wages in the full-time wage distribution.Female labor supply, part-time employment, wage differentials, JEL codes: J21, J24, J31,

The skills and autonomy of female part-time work in Britain and Sweden

“…It seems plausible that the extent of disadvantage will be affected by the institutional context of employment, for instance the coverage of collective bargaining, the nature of labour regulation, the structure of skill formation and the welfare system (Anxo et al, 2000;Bardasi & Gornick, 2008;Blossfeld & Hakim, 1997;Buddelmeyer et al, 2005b;Daune-Richard, 1998;Ellingsaeter, 1995;Fagan & Rubery, 1996;Fouarge & Muffels, 2009;Nätti, 1995;O'Reilly, 1994;Rosenfeld & Birkelund, 1995;Smith et al, 2000).…”

“…They were found to be in lower skilled jobs (Gallie et al, 1998;Tam, 1997), to have lower pay (Bardasi & Gornick, 2008;Fouarge & Muffels, 2009;Gornick & Jacobs, 1996;Kalleberg et al, 2000;Manning & Petrongolo, 2008), reduced access to employment benefits, such as pensions, sick pay, health insurance and unemployment benefits (Gallie et al, 1998;Ginn & Arber, 1998;Kalleberg et al, 2000;Rubery et al, 1998), and more limited opportunities for career advancement (Gallie et al, 1998;Russo & Hassink, 2008;Tam, 1997). There has been less agreement about whether part-time work is associated with lower job security (Båvner, 2001;Gallie et al, 1998) and about whether it constitutes a 'bridge' or a 'trap' with respect to longer-term careers (Anxo et al, 2000;Blank, 1998;Blossfeld & Hakim, 1997;Buddelmeyer et al, 2005a;Connolly & Gregory, 2008Nätti, 1995;O'Reilly & Bothfeld, 2002;Smith et al, 2000;Sundström, 2003).…”

Examining the gender wealth gap

“…According to Warren et al 2001 any disadvantage in net worth is partly the result of lower female labor force participation The standard pattern is a continuous full-time labor market attachment for male breadwinners, while women tend to have part-time work arrangements (including potential wage penalties; see Bardasi and Gornick, 2008), often with more diversified work histories due to child bearing and child rearing and more frequent job changes (Berger and Denton, 2004).…”

Uma análise de género da Grande Recessão e do “austericídio” em Espanha

“…The analyses conducted by Bardasi and Gornick (2008) for OECD countries, and by Del Río and Alonso -Villar (2010) for Spain, show the existence of a positive correlation between gender segregation and the weighting of part -time contracts. A large portion of the wage gap between women with full -time contracts and those with part -time contracts is due to the higher occupational segregation present in part -time employment.…”