scholarly journals Gender Roles and Employment Pathways of Older Women and Men in England

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824401774269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariska van der Horst ◽  
David Lain ◽  
Sarah Vickerstaff ◽  
Charlotte Clark ◽  
Ben Baumberg Geiger

In the context of population aging, the U.K. government is encouraging people to work longer and delay retirement, and it is claimed that many people now make “gradual” transitions from full-time to part-time work to retirement. Part-time employment in older age may, however, be largely due to women working part-time before older age, as per a U.K. “modified male breadwinner” model. This article therefore separately examines the extent to which men and women make transitions into part-time work in older age, and whether such transitions are influenced by marital status. Following older men and women over a 10-year period using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this article presents sequence, cluster, and multinomial logistic regression analyses. Little evidence is found for people moving into part-time work in older age. Typically, women did not work at all or they worked part-time (with some remaining in part-time work and some retiring/exiting from this activity). Consistent with a “modified male breadwinner” logic, marriage was positively related to the likelihood of women belonging to typically “female employment pathway clusters,” which mostly consist of part-time work or not being employed. Men were mostly working full-time regardless of marital status. Attempts to extend working lives among older women are therefore likely to be complicated by the influence of traditional gender roles on employment.

Author(s):  
Mara A. Yerkes ◽  
Belinda Hewitt

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


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
David S. Pedulla ◽  
Michael J. Donnelly

Abstract The social and economic forces that shape attitudes toward the welfare state are of central concern to social scientists. Scholarship in this area has paid limited attention to how working part-time, the employment status of nearly 20% of the U.S. workforce, affects redistribution preferences. In this article, we theoretically develop and empirically test an argument about the ways that part-time work, and its relationship to gender, shape redistribution preferences. We articulate two gender-differentiated pathways—one material and one about threats to social status—through which part-time work and gender may jointly shape individuals’ preferences for redistribution. We test our argument using cross-sectional and panel data from the General Social Survey in the United States. We find that the positive relationship between part-time employment, compared to full-time employment, and redistribution preferences is stronger for men than for women. Indeed, we do not detect a relationship between part-time work and redistribution preferences among women. Our results provide support for a gendered relationship between part-time employment and redistribution preferences and demonstrate that both material and status-based mechanisms shape this association.


2012 ◽  
Vol 222 ◽  
pp. R20-R37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley Dex ◽  
Erzsébet Bukodi

The effects of working part time on job downgrading and upgrading are examined over the life course of British women born in 1958. We use longitudinal data with complete work histories from a large-scale nationally representative cohort study. Occupations were ranked by their hourly average earnings. Analyses show a strong link between full-time/part-time transitions and downward and upward occupational mobility over the course of up to thirty years of employment. Probabilities of occupational mobility were affected by women's personal traits, occupational characteristics and demand-side factors. Downward mobility on moving from full-time to part-time work was more likely for women at the top levels of the occupational hierarchy working in male-dominated or mixed occupations and less likely in higher occupations with more part-time jobs available.


Author(s):  
Aart-Jan Riekhoff ◽  
Oxana Krutova ◽  
Jouko Nätti

In this article, we investigate changes in usual working hours and part-time work in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in recent decades. We analyze whether convergence or divergence occurred between countries, between men and women, and between men and women in each country. We use annual data from the European Labor Force Survey to identify trends between 1996 and 2016 (N = 730,133), while controlling for a set of structural factors. The findings suggest a degree of divergence between countries: usual working hours and the incidence of part-time work were relatively stable in Finland and Sweden, while working hours decreased in Denmark and Norway. The latter is partly driven by a decline among the 15–29 age group. The gender gap in working hours and part-time work was closed somewhat, in particular due to a rise in part-time work among men and a decline among women in Norway and Sweden.


2020 ◽  
pp. 67-85
Author(s):  
David S. Pedulla

This chapter delves into the effects of each type of employment experience—part-time work, temporary agency employment, skills underutilization, and long-term unemployment. These are compared to full-time, standard employment on applicants' likelihood of receiving a callback for a job. As the chapter shows, the effects are largely contingent. First, they are contingent on the type of employment history. Each type of employment experience—part-time work versus temporary agency employment, for instance—does not result in the same treatment from hiring professionals. Second, the consequences of a particular employment experience are contingent on the race and gender of the worker. Indeed, it is difficult to isolate the effect of a given employment history from the way it is refracted through a worker's social group membership.


Author(s):  
Jouko Nätti ◽  
Kristine Nergaard

In this chapter we discuss the development of part-time work in Finland and Norway and ask if there is a trend towards more marginalised part-time work also in the well-regulated Nordic labour markets. Furthermore, we investigate if there are differences between Norway, with its long tradition for normalised part-time jobs among women, and Finland, where full-time work has been the normal choice for women. Part-time jobs are more common among young persons, women, and in the service sectors. In both countries, part-time jobs are more insecure than full-time jobs. However, there is no strong tendency towards more insecure part-time jobs over time. We also examine mobility from part-time jobs to other positions in the labour market. In both countries, part-time work is characterised by high stability. Hence, the results do not give support for increased polarisation in terms of increased work insecurity among part-time employees. in terms of increased work insecurity among part-time employees.


Author(s):  
Hanne Cecilie Kavli ◽  
Roy A. Nielsen

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.


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