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The introduction chapter outline the conceptual framework for the volume and describe the current patterns of part-time work. Part-time work has been a much visited research topic and the typical part-time worker still is a woman with children. Although gender and work-life balance continue to be at the heart of this topic, part-time work is increasingly connected to the political and academic debates about labour market outsiders. The ambition of this volume is to provide an up-to-date account of what kind of labour market phenomenon part-time work is to different categories of workers across Europe, the USA, Australia and South Korea and to explore how part-time is linked to precarious work and labour market dualisation. We discuss how the politics, regulations and institutions at different levels (supranational, national and workplace) have the capacity to influence part-time work. Based on the contributions to this book we present a typology of part-time work which moves beyond the traditional insider/outsider divide and provides a more diverse vocabulary for later analysis of part-time work.

This chapter contributes to the dualization debate by investigating the extent to which gender unequal part-time work patterns reflect insider - outsider labour market effects (e.g. based on gender and occupational effects) by comparing the Netherlands - a country with high protection of part-time workers - with Australia - a country with minimal protection. We focus on the part-time work strategies of men and women of childbearing age, bridging dualization theory with work-family theory. We explore both the extent of dualization between men and women (how women and men differ in their part-time employment patterns) as well as possible dualization effects within part-time work, considering variation in part-time work strategies among women in both countries. Our findings suggest dualization between part-time and full-time workers exists in both countries. Crucially, we find that dualization exists within part

In January 2018, about 17 percent of the workforce in the United States had a part-time job. Part-time employment increased between 1955 and the 1980s as large numbers of women entered the workforce. Since then it has fluctuated in response to rising and falling unemployment. The majority of part-time workers are between 24 and 60 and about two-thirds are women, who often divide their time between work and family. Like other forms of nonstandard work, part-time workers are more likely to have bad jobs, and they are more apt to live in families that are poor, even when controlling for a multitude of labor related variables. Although some part-time jobs offer health and retirement benefits and wages above the poverty threshold, most do not. Only a small share of part-time jobs-between 16 and 17 percent-are located in the primary labor market. When compared to whites, we find that blacks, Hispanic non-citizens, and persons of mixed-race descent are more likely to work part-time. Part-time workers in these groups are also more likely to have jobs in the secondary labor market. Finally, we find that as percentage of part-time workers in occupations increases, the negative effect on job quality associated with the percentage of women in an occupation is greatly reduced or disappear

This chapter focuses on the European Union (EU) dimension of part-time work. It gives a broad overview of EU norms and instrument and sets the issue of part-time work in the wider context of gender equality. Connecting part-time work with gender equality facilitates the analysis in two ways. Firstly, it enables linking the EU's employment policies to fundamental rights such as equal labour market opportunities for men and women. Via this fundamental rights approach the EU's view on part-time work may be tied to concerns of labour market dualisation. Secondly, it helps to analyse the degree of conflict between the aims of the different EU instruments. For instance, do the part-time work directive and the European Employment Strategy (EES) both aim for equal employment opportunities, or do other goals prevail? By answering such questions, the chapter not only reveals the different ways in which the EU deals with part-time employment, but also uncovers whether or not there is coherence between the different EU-level instruments

Migrants are often at a disadvantage in the labour market. Increased migration has therefore led to a strong focus in receiving countries on policy that can facilitate employment. Less attention is paid to working hours, contracts or type of work. The workplace is viewed as an arena where immigrants can improve language skills and establish contacts through which they can achieve upwards mobility in the labour market. We investigate transfers out of part-time work among immigrants and natives in Norway. By means of competing risk event history analyses, we compare transitions from part-time work to either full-time positions or exits from the labour market over five years among Norwegians and different groups of immigrants. Stable part-time is less common among immigrants than among natives, as immigrants have higher transfers to both full-time work and unemployment. Immigrants - men and women - have the same or higher likelihood of transitioning from part-time to full-time compared to natives. This suggest that immigrants are more often involuntarily in part-time and that they benefit from the opportunity to demonstrate their skills to employers. However, immigrants also have higher exit risk and this risk increases with short working hours, indicating a higher level of precariousness.

This chapter explores how the institutional framework for working time and wage regulation affects the prevalence of marginal part-time employment (less than 15 working hours per week) and its implications for men and women's hourly earnings within retail, industrial cleaning, hotels and restaurants. Analytically, we draw on the concept of living hours and find that the combined effects of wage and working time regulation influence the take-up of contracts of few hours and the workforce composition. We argue that the institutional framework of collective agreements, in some instances, facilitates a win-win situation for employers and employees alike and narrows the gender pay gap. In other instances, the very same agreements seemingly promote dualisation, especially for young people and migrants in terms of wage penalties and contracts of few hours, indicating the dual nature of the institutional framework.

In the concluding chapter, we summarise the volume's main findings and discuss some of the possible, future prospects of part-time work. We return to the question of dualisation of part-time work and discuss the capability of policy and regulations to influence the divide between good and bad part-time jobs and labour market insiders and outsiders. The book makes four contributions to the literature and to public debates on part-time work. First, it offers new perspectives and analyses on the regulation of part-time work at the supranational, the national and the workplace levels. Second, it develops a typology of part-time work that goes beyond the traditional insider-outsider divide and provides a more diverse vocabulary for later descriptions and discussions of part-time work. Third, it provides an up-to-date account of part-time work and its consequences in a range of countries and regime types. Fourth, it initiates a debate on the role and implications of part-time work among men.

In the early 2000s, Germany's Red-Green government introduced a new type of marginal employment in the form of 'Minijob' legislation. In the context of the dualisation strategy of the German welfare state, Minijob legislation has supported firms in extending the secondary segment of marginal jobs. However, Minijobs are associated with particularly low social security and high poverty risks, and these positions are primarily staffed by women. Therefore, the extension of the Minijob system has contributed to the persistence of traditional structures of gender inequality. This empirical study examines how demand and supply side factors interact with welfare state institutions and politics in the production of marginal employment of women in part-time jobs. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we used logistic regression to analyse women's risk of working in Minijobs based on family, educational, biographical and workplace characteristics. The research results identify both supply side and demand side factors as being significant in shaping a situation whereby married women with small children and lower levels of education who work in small, non-public firms are particularly exposed to the risks of marginal employment in Minijobs.