But they can also stop women’s careers from progressing
of a Dutch woman on a Wednesday can be tricky. For most primary schools it is a half-day, and as three-quarters of working women are part-time, it is a popular day to take off. The Dutch are world champions at part-time work and are often lauded for their healthy work-life balance and happy children. But these come at a price. Among western European countries, the Netherlands has the largest gap between men’s and women’s pension entitlements, and the largest in monthly income.
Second, part-timers are more likely to have a “bad job”—one that offers little training and few legal rights. In America 39% of female part-time workers, compared with 6% of full-time men and 9% of full-time women, are in the “secondary” labour market, with low pay, no benefits and few opportunities to move to better jobs, writes Arne Kalleberg of the University of North Carolina in “Precarious Work”.
For an employer, the benefit of part-time rather than full-time workers depends on the sector. When demand varies a lot, part-timers bring large productivity gains, according to an extensive study of employees in pharmacies. Companies where full-time employees work more than 48 hours a week could benefit from more part-timers, since productivity falls off above that threshold. But otherwise the evidence is mixed.