IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tiu/tiucen/a871b3a2-218e-46ac-8fc9-37c394916fc3.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Part-time Jobs : What Women Want?

Author

Listed:
  • Booth, A.L.
  • van Ours, J.C.

    (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research)

Abstract

Part-time jobs are common among partnered women in many countries. There are two opposing views on the efficiency implications of so many women working part-time. The negative view is that part-time jobs imply wastage of resources and underutilization of investments in human capital since many part-time working women are highly educated. The positive view is that, without the existence of part-time jobs, female labor force participation would be substantially lower since women confronted with the choice between a full-time job and zero working hours would opt for the latter. In the Netherlands, the majority of partnered working women have a part-time job. Our paper investigates, from a supply-side perspective, if the current situation of abundant part-time work in the Netherlands is likely to be a transitional phase that will culminate in many women working full-time. Our main results indicate that partnered women in part-time work have high levels of job satisfaction, a low desire to change their working hours, and live in partnerships in which household production is highly gendered. Taken together, our results suggest that part-time jobs are what most Dutch women want. Copyright The Author(s) 2013
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Booth, A.L. & van Ours, J.C., 2010. "Part-time Jobs : What Women Want?," Discussion Paper 2010-05, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:tiu:tiucen:a871b3a2-218e-46ac-8fc9-37c394916fc3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://pure.uvt.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/1170108/2010-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara Connolly & Mary Gregory, 2008. "Moving Down: Women's Part‐Time Work and Occupational Change in Britain 1991–2001," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 52-76, February.
    2. Alison L. Booth & Jan C. Van Ours, 2008. "Job Satisfaction and Family Happiness: The Part‐Time Work Puzzle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 77-99, February.
    3. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, 2002. "What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 402-435, June.
    4. Alison L. Booth & Jan C. Van Ours, 2009. "Hours of Work and Gender Identity: Does Part‐time Work Make the Family Happier?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 176-196, February.
    5. Bosch, Nicole & van der Klaauw, Bas, 2012. "Analyzing female labor supply — Evidence from a Dutch tax reform," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 271-280.
    6. Clark, Andrew E., 1997. "Job satisfaction and gender: Why are women so happy at work?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 341-372, December.
    7. Blank, Rebecca M, 1989. "The Role of Part-Time Work in Women's Labor Market Choices over Time," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(2), pages 295-299, May.
    8. 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.
    9. Nicole Bosch & Anja Deelen & Rob Euwals, 2010. "Is Part‐time Employment Here to Stay? Working Hours of Dutch Women over Successive Generations," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 24(1), pages 35-54, March.
    10. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    11. Rosen, Sherwin, 1983. "Specialization and Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 43-49, January.
    12. Florence Jaumotte, 2004. "Labour Force Participation of Women: Empirical Evidence on The Role of Policy and Other Determinants in OECD Countries," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2003(2), pages 51-108.
    13. Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell & Paul Frijters, 2004. "How Important is Methodology for the estimates of the determinants of Happiness?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 641-659, July.
    14. Booth, A.L. & Coles, M.G., 2010. "Tax policy and returns to education," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 291-301, January.
    15. Johannes Schwarze & Rainer Winkelmann, 2011. "Happiness and altruism within the extended family," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(3), pages 1033-1051, July.
    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. Jenny Willson & Andy Dickerson, 2010. "Part time employment and happiness: A cross-country analysis," Working Papers 2010021, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2010.
    2. Booth, A.L. & van Ours, J.C., 2007. "Job Satisfaction And Family Happiness : The Part-Time Work Problem," Discussion Paper 2007-69, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Alison L. Booth & Jan C. Van Ours, 2009. "Hours of Work and Gender Identity: Does Part‐time Work Make the Family Happier?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 176-196, February.
    4. Robert Rudolf, 2014. "Work Shorter, Be Happier? Longitudinal Evidence from the Korean Five-Day Working Policy," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(5), pages 1139-1163, October.
    5. Possenriede, Daniel & Plantenga, Janneke, 2014. "Temporal and Locational Flexibility of Work, Working-Time Fit, and Job Satisfaction," IZA Discussion Papers 8436, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Alison L. Booth & Jan C. Van Ours, 2008. "Job Satisfaction and Family Happiness: The Part‐Time Work Puzzle," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(526), pages 77-99, February.
    7. repec:tiu:tiucen:200769 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. repec:dgr:kubcen:200769 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Begoña Álvarez & Daniel Miles-Touya, 2016. "Time Allocation and Women’s Life Satisfaction: Evidence from Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 1207-1230, December.
    10. Wunder, Christoph & Heineck, Guido, 2013. "Working time preferences, hours mismatch and well-being of couples: Are there spillovers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 244-252.
    11. Nandi, Alita & L. Bryan, Mark, 2015. "Working hours, work identity and subjective wellbeing," ISER Working Paper Series 2015-21, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    12. Lepinteur, Anthony & Flèche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2016. "My Baby Takes the Morning Train: Gender Identity, Fairness, and Relative Labor Supply Within Households," IZA Discussion Papers 10382, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Collewet, M.M.F. & de Grip, A. & Koning, J.d., 2015. "Peer working time, labour supply, and happiness for male workers," ROA Research Memorandum 006, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    14. Collewet, Marion & de Grip, Andries & de Koning, Jaap, 2017. "Conspicuous work: Peer working time, labour supply, and happiness," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 79-90.
    15. Adrian Chadi & Clemens Hetschko, 2021. "How Job Changes Affect People's Lives — Evidence from Subjective Well‐Being Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 279-306, June.
    16. Anja Iseke, 2014. "The Part-Time Job Satisfaction Puzzle: Different Types of Job Discrepancies and the Moderating Effect of Family Importance," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 52(3), pages 445-469, September.
    17. Beja Jr, Edsel, 2012. "Who is happier: Housewife or working wife?," MPRA Paper 40533, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Collewet, Marion & de Grip, Andries & de Koning, Jaap, 2015. "Conspicuous Work: Peer Working Time, Labour Supply and Happiness for Male Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 9011, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Nikolova, Milena & Nikolaev, Boris N., 2021. "Family matters: The effects of parental unemployment in early childhood and adolescence on subjective well-being later in life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 312-331.
    20. Wen-Chun Chang, 2011. "Identity, Gender, and Subjective Well-Being," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 69(1), pages 97-121.
    21. Cortés Aguilar Alexandra & Teresa Garcia-Muñoz & Ana I. Moro Egido, 2013. "Heterogeneous Self-employment and Subjective Well-Being. Evidence from Latin America," ThE Papers 13/05, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    22. Qinglong Shao, 2022. "Exploring the promoting effect of working time reduction on life satisfaction using Germany as a case study," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    part-time work; happiness; satisfaction; working hours; gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    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:tiu:tiucen:a871b3a2-218e-46ac-8fc9-37c394916fc3. 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: Richard Broekman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://center.uvt.nl .

    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.