Who's got the balance? A study of satisfaction with the work–family balance among part-time service sector employees in five western European countries

Abstract

Working part-time is frequently considered a viable strategy for employees to better combine work and non-work responsibilities. The present study examines differences in satisfaction with work-family balance (SWFB) among professional and non-professional part-time service sector employees in five western European countries. Part-time employees were found to be more SWFB than full-time employees even after taking varying demands and resources into account. However, there are important differences among the part-timers. Employees in marginal part-time employment with considerably reduced working hours were the most satisfied. Professionals were found to profit less from reduced working hours and experienced lower levels of SWFB than non-professionals. No significant differences in SWFB were found between male and female part-time workers.

Keywords:

• Europe
• gender
• part-time work
• professionals
• satisfaction with work-family balance

Acknowledgements

Research for this study was partly supported by the European Commission through funding of the cross-national collaborative research project Quality of Life in a Changing Europe (QUALITY), within which the data were collected. The authors would like to thank co-researchers in the QUALITY project as well as the Work and Organizations research group at the University of Groningen and an anonymous IJHRM reviewer for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes

1. Survey participants provided the occupational title of their jobs. These descriptions were coded using the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO 88), which was used together with the information on supervisor status and number of employees under supervision to assign participants to the Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero (EGP) classes (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992). These classes, generally referred to as the EGP scheme, consist of 11 occupational groups allowing for comparative analyses between different employee categories. In our study, ‘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’ and ‘manual supervisor’ were classified as ‘non-professionals’. We did not have self-employed, small employers and farm workers in our sample.