Part-time Work Arrangements Research Articles

Myths and Counter-Myths: An Analysis of Part-Time Female Employees and Their Orientations to Work and Working Hours

The nature and character of the part-time workforce has been at the forefront of recent controversies about women's employment. Drawing on new data on the characteristics, attitudes and preferences of over one thousand female part-time employees, this study highlights important diversities amongst the part-time workforce. The results show that the women in the sample had gravitated to part-time work from a range of different employment backgrounds, and for a variety of motivations. While the majority of the women workers were content with their current part-time work arrangements, a significant minority wished to change their employment status to full-time work and a substantial number of part-time women workers wanted to return to full-time work in the future. The research examines the characteristics of such women, and argues that the stereotyping of the part-time workforce as universally `home-centred' or committed to the `marriage career' is misplaced.

Women's Career Development and Part-Time Arrangements

This chapter discusses the benefits, challenges, and strategies of part-time work arrangements and explores how part-time employment can be a viable career development option for women.

Patterns of part-time employment

The research examines the impact of type of part-time work arrangements, type of referent others used by part-time employees to make equity assessments, and demographic variables on part-time workers' reactions to their jobs. Data were collected from 707 part-time workers in five medical care, retailing, and educational settings. Consistent with the hypotheses, part-time workers have more positive job attitudes toward positions which are permanent and are congruent with their past education and work experience. Relative to part-time student workers, married women with children are more likely to be employed in these permanent part-time jobs, to have more positive job attitudes, and to earn higher wages. Contrary to the traditional assumption of the literature on part-time workers, part-time workers in this study used other part-timers in their organizations as their referent others rather than full-time colleagues.