European Part-time Workers’ Health and Well-being in Times of Crisis. The Case of Female Part-timers

The economic crisis, which started in late 2007, had a major impact on countries’ labour markets, and triggered a rise in the number of non-standard contracts. Most European Union (EU) countries witnessed a significant increase in part-time jobs. This type of employment and its working conditions may have a negative impact on the health and well-being of workers, especially women. The aims of this paper are: 1) to determine whether there are differences in levels of part-time workers’ health and well-being by gender for the EU as a whole as well as for each European country individually, and 2) to ascertain which determinants impact female part-time workers’ health and well-being. A Synthetic Health and Well-being Indicator (SHWI) was designed using the measure of P2 distance approach as a methodological tool. In order to explore the determinants for female part-timers, linear regressions were used adopting a multilevel analysis based on data from the 2010 European Working Conditions Survey. The main results show that female part-time workers display lower levels of health and well-being than their male counterparts in the EU. Factors such as the nature of the work, difficulty making ends meet, perceived job insecurity, social support and work-life balance play an essential role in levels of female part-timers´ health and well-being. We may conclude that, in addition to greater institutional support for the inclusion of women in the labour market, changes in public policies designed to improve working conditions (better schedules and a greater presence of non-manual skilled jobs) coupled with changes in family policy, could play a key role in reducing gender differences