Abstract
Objective: This study investigates whether sorting into occupations and work organizations contributes to gender differences in parents’ likelihood to reduce their working hours.
 Background: While mothers reduce their work hours to reconcile their work and personal lives, fathers increasingly wish to reduce their hours but face obstacles to doing so. Mismatches between parents' desired and actual work hours prompt the question of whether fathers' realization of working-time reductions is constrained due to their sorting into more time-intensive occupations and/or work organizations.
 Method: Cross-classified multilevel models were applied to German linked employer-employee data analyzing gender differences in parents' likelihood of reducing work hours. Including sorting indicators, the question of whether differences in full-time employed mothers' and fathers' working-time reductions were driven by sorting into different work contexts (occupations/work organizations) was explored.
 Results: The results confirmed that full-time employed mothers are more likely to reduce their work hours than full-time employed fathers. While occupations play almost no role in determining working-time adjustments, work context does at least partly contribute to parents’ variation in working-time reductions. However, neither gendered sorting into occupations nor gendered sorting into work organizations explained gender differences in parents’ likelihood of scaling back their work hours.
 Conclusion: It is concluded that gender differences in German parents' reduction of working hours rather respond to traditional gender norms than being influenced by the different occupations or work organizations mothers and fathers sort themselves into.
Highlights
Gender inequalities in employment patterns and employment outcomes persist despite the alignment of male and female careers (Blau & Kahn 2017; Granato 2017; Schrenker & Zucco 2020)
Comparing the distributions between mothers and fathers shows a similar pattern for work organizations and occupations, mothers were in both contexts more likely to reduce their work hours than fathers
This paper aimed to contribute to the understanding of persisting gender differences in the reduction of work hours, focusing on full-time employed parents’ work context staying within the same work organization
Summary
Gender inequalities in employment patterns (i.e. work hours, career interruptions) and employment outcomes (i.e. wages, authority) persist despite the alignment of male and female careers (Blau & Kahn 2017; Granato 2017; Schrenker & Zucco 2020). Fathers increasingly desire a reduction in work hours (Abendroth & Pausch 2018; Hobson & Fahlén 2009; Pollmann-Schult & Reynolds 2017), they continue to be less likely to realize reductions than mothers (Clarkberg & Moen 2001; Hobson & Fahlén 2009; Thornthwaite 2004). It seems that possibilities for work-hour reductions are gendered
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