IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v118y2008i526pf28-f51.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Part-Time Pay Penalty for Women in Britain

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Manning
  • Barbara Petrongolo

Abstract

Women in Britain who work part-time have, on average, hourly earnings about 25% less than that of women working full-time. This gap has widened greatly over the past 30 years. This article tries to explain this part-time pay penalty. It shows that a sizeable part of the penalty can be explained by the differing characteristics of FT and PT women. Inclusion of standard demographics halves the estimate of the pay penalty. But inclusion of occupation makes the pay penalty very small, suggesting that almost the entire unexplained gap is due to occupational segregation. The rise in the pay penalty over time is partly a result of a rise in occupational segregation and partly the general rise in wage inequality. Policies to reduce the pay penalty have had little effect and it is likely that it will not change much unless better jobs can be made available on a part-time basis. Copyright 2008 The Author(s). Journal compilation Royal Economic Society 2008.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Manning & Barbara Petrongolo, 2008. "The Part-Time Pay Penalty for Women in Britain," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 28-51, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:118:y:2008:i:526:p:f28-f51
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    2. Montgomery, Mark, 1988. "On the Determinants of Employer Demand for Part-Time Workers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(1), pages 112-117, February.
    3. Richard Dickens & Alan Manning, 2004. "Has the national minimum wage reduced UK wage inequality?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 167(4), pages 613-626, November.
    4. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2003. "Understanding International Differences in the Gender Pay Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 106-144, January.
    5. Lundberg, Shelly J, 1985. "Tied Wage-Hours Offers and the Endogeneity of Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 405-410, August.
    6. Robinson, Helen, 2002. "Wrong Side of the Track? The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Gender Pay Gaps in Britain," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(5), pages 417-448, December.
    7. Moffitt, Robert, 1984. "The Estimation of a Joint Wage-Hours Labor Supply Model," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(4), pages 550-566, October.
    8. Helen Robinson, 2002. "Wrong Side of the Track? The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Gender Pay Gaps in Britain," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(5), pages 417-448, December.
    9. Diane M. Houston & Gillian Marks, 2003. "The Role of Planning and Workplace Support in Returning to Work after Maternity Leave," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 197-214, June.
    10. John F. Ermisch & Robert E. Wright, 1993. "Wage Offers and Full-Time and Part-Time Employment by British Women," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 28(1), pages 111-133.
    11. Yoram Barzel, 1973. "The Determination of Daily Hours and Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 87(2), pages 220-238.
    12. Ethel B. Jones & James E. Long, 1979. "Part-Week Work and Human Capital Investment by Married Women," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 14(4), pages 579-594.
    13. Richard Dickens & Paul Gregg & Jonathan Wadsworth (ed.), 2003. "The Labour Market Under New Labour," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-59845-4.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manning, Alan & Petrongolo, Barbara, 2005. "The part-time pay penalty," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4614, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Colella, Fabrizio, 2014. "Women's Part-Time - Full-Time Wage Differentials in Europe: an Endogenous Switching Model," MPRA Paper 55287, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Richard Blundell & Mike Brewer & Marco Francesconi, 2008. "Job Changes and Hours Changes: Understanding the Path of Labor Supply Adjustment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 421-453, July.
    4. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French, 2004. "The Effect of Part-Time Work on Wages: Evidence from the Social Security Rules," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 329-352, April.
    5. Síle O'Dorchai & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2007. "The part‐time wage penalty in European countries: how large is it for men?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(7), pages 571-603, October.
    6. Tom Günther & Ulrich C. Schneider & Fabian Stürmer-Heiber, 2023. "Working More for Less: Part-time Penalties Across the Working Hours Distribution?," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0025, Berlin School of Economics.
    7. Devicienti, Francesco & Grinza, Elena & Vannoni, Davide, 2020. "Why do firms (dis)like part-time contracts?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French, 2009. "The Effects of Progressive Taxation on Labor Supply when Hours and Wages Are Jointly Determined," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    9. Kerly Krillo & Jaan Masso, 2010. "The Part-Time/Full-Time Wage Gap in Central and Eastern Europe: the Case of Estonia," Research in Economics and Business: Central and Eastern Europe, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology, vol. 2(1).
    10. Annekatrin Schrenker, 2022. "Do Women Expect Wage Cuts for Part-time Work?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2024, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Schrenker, Annekatrin, 2023. "Do women expect wage cuts for part-time work?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Männasoo, Kadri, 2022. "Working hours and gender wage differentials: Evidence from the American Working Conditions Survey," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    13. Francesco Devicienti & Elena Grinza & Davide Vannoni, 2015. "The Impact of Part-Time Work on Firm Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Italy," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 433, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    14. Wolf, Elke, 2001. "Comparing the part-time wage gap in Germany and the Netherlands," ZEW Discussion Papers 01-18, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    15. Sile Padraigin O'Dorchai, 2008. "Do women gain or lose from becoming mothers?," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 51(2/3), pages 243-268.
    16. Bargain, Olivier & Doorley, Karina & Van Kerm, Philippe, 2018. "Minimum Wages and the Gender Gap in Pay: New Evidence from the UK and Ireland," IZA Discussion Papers 11502, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. HU Yongjian & TIJDENS Kea, 2003. "Choices for part-time jobs and the impacts on the wage differentials. A comparative study for Great Britain and the Netherlands," IRISS Working Paper Series 2003-05, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    18. Shi Li & Xinxin Ma, 2015. "Impact of minimum wage on gender wage gaps in urban China," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-22, December.
    19. Wolf, Elke, 2013. "The German part-time wage gap: bad news for men," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79969, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Carlos Oliveira, 2022. "How is the Minimum Wage Shaping the Wage Disitribution: Bite, Spillovers, and Wage Inequality," GEE Papers 0160, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised May 2022.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecj:econjl:v:118:y:2008:i:526:p:f28-f51. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing or Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.