Lower Educated Workers and Part-Time Work: The Netherlands 1973-91

Abstract

The thesis of the paper is that the strong growth of the number of part-time jobs in the Netherlandsbetween 1975 and 1991 has negatively affected the labour market participation of men, especiallyof lower educated men. The thesis consists of a behavioural component, which explains why lowereducated men are not attracted and do not get access to part-time jobs, and an institutionalcomponent, which explains why the labour market position of lower educated men in theNetherlands has deteriorated relatively rapidly during the period 1975-1991. The thesis isunderpinned by an empirical analysis of labour market participation of lower educated maleworkers in part-time and full-time jobs. Competing theses, such as upgrading of the job structure,displacement by better educated workers and sector shift from manufacturing to services areempirically tested, but prove to be less informative explanations of the deteriorated labour marketposition of lower educated men than the explanation of the growth of part-time jobs.