Introduction

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.