Part-time work and gender inequality in Europe: a comparative analysis of satisfaction with work–life balance

ABSTRACT

Part-time work is an increasingly common strategy for handling work and family – but is it an effective strategy everywhere and for everyone? To answer this question, we examine satisfaction with work–life balance (SWLB) of workers in 22 European countries. Our results show that part-time workers have higher SWLB than full-time workers; the more so, the fewer hours they put in. Yet, we find an important gender difference: women in marginal part-time work are more satisfied than men in a similar situation, and conversely men in full-time work have higher SWLB than women working full-time. Further, the societal context plays an important role: substantial part-time work is more conducive to SWLB in more gender-egalitarian countries than in countries with low gender equality. Hence, a supportive gender climate and institutional support may entice workers to reduce working hours moderately, which results in markedly increased levels of SWLB.

KEYWORDS:

• Work–life balance
• part-time work
• gender inequality
• Europe

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Barbara Beham is professor of organizational psychology and cross-cultural management at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. Her research focuses on the work–family interface, flexible working arrangements and gender (in)equality from a cross-cultural/national perspective.

Sonja Drobnič is professor of sociology at the University of Bremen and vice-dean at the Bremen International Graduate school of Social Sciences. Her research interests include social inequalities in the household and in the labor market, employment patterns over the life course, social networks and social capital, quality of life and work in general, and work–life balance in particular.

Patrick Präg is a researcher at the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford and a research fellow at Nuffield College. His areas of research comprise social stratification, health and well-being, and work and family reconciliation.

Andreas Baierl is senior researcher at the Austrian Institute for Family Studies at the University of Vienna. His research activities include planning and analysis of empirical studies and surveys with a focus on the topics work–life balance, impact of family policies and cross-national comparisons.

Janin Eckner is a research fellow at the Department of Business and Economics at the Berlin School of Economics and Law. Her research interests focus on the work–family interface and social support in a cross-cultural perspective.

Notes

1 ISCO 88 codes, supervisor status, and number of employees under supervision were used to assign participants to the EGP class schema (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992) which allows for comparative analyses between different employee categories. ‘High and low controllers’ were collapsed into a new category ‘professionals’. The EGP classes ‘routine non-manual’, ‘routine manual’, ‘skilled-manual’, ‘semi-unskilled manual’, ‘skilled manual’, ‘manual supervisor’, and ‘farm labor’ were classified as ‘non-professionals’. Self-employed and small employers were not included in our sample.