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Back-to-front Down-under? Part-time/Full-time Wage Differentials in Australia

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Author Info
Alison Booth
Margi Wood

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Abstract

In 2003, part-time employment in Australia accounted for over 42% of the Australian female workforce, nearly 17% of the male workforce, and represented 28% of total employment. Of the OECD countries, only the Netherlands has a higher proportion of working women employed part-time and Australia tops the OECD league in terms of its proportion of working men who are part-time. In this paper we investigate part-time full-time hourly wage gaps using important new panel data from the new Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. We find that the usual negative part-time wage penalty found in other countries is not found in Australia once unobserved individual heterogeneity has been taken into account. Instead, part-time men and women typically earn an hourly pay premium. This result survives our numerous robustness checks and we advance some hypotheses as to why there is a positive part-time pay premium.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 482.

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Length: 22 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2004
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:482

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Related research
Keywords: part-time; full-time; efficiency hours; gender;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Main, Brian G M, 1988. "Hourly Earnings of Female Part-time versus Full-time Employees," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(4), pages 331-44, December.
  2. Booth, Alison & Ravallion, Martin, 1993. "Employment and Length of the Working Week in a Unionized Economy in which Hours of Work Influence Productivity," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 69(207), pages 428-36, December.
  3. Alison L. Booth & Jan C. van Ours, 2005. "Hours of Work and Gender Identity: Does Part-Time Work Make the Family Happier?," IZA Discussion Papers 1884, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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  4. Barry T. Hirsch, 2005. "Why do part-time workers earn less? The role of worker and job skills," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 58(4), pages 525-551, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Joan R. Rodgers, 2004. "Hourly Wages of full-time and part-time employees in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), The Centre for Labour Market Research (CLMR), Curtin Business School, vol. 7(2), pages 231-254, June.
  6. Mark Wooden & Diana Warren, 2003. "The Characteristics of Casual and Fixed-Term Employment: Evidence from the HILDA Survey," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2003n15, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Colin Green & Gareth Leeves & P Kler, 2008. "Flexible contract workers in inferior jobs: reappraising the evidence," Working Papers 005350, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department. [Downloadable!]
  2. Baron, Juan & Cobb-Clark, Deborah, 2008. "Occupational Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap in Private- and Public-Sector Employment: A Distributional Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 3562, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  3. Lixin Cai & C. Jeffrey Waddoups, 2008. "Union Wage Effects in Australia: Evidence from Panel Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 585, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Alison Booth & Pamela Katic, 2008. "Men at Work in a Land Down-under," CEPR Discussion Papers 586, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
  5. Síle O’Dorchai & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2007. "The Part-Time Wage Penalty in European Countries: How Large Is It for Men?," IZA Discussion Papers 2591, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Lixin Cai, 2007. "Effects of Health on Wages of Australian Men," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2007n02, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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