Ungrateful slaves? An examination of job quality and job satisfaction for male part-time workers in the UK

Research on part-time work has concentrated over many decades on the experiences of women but male part-time employment is growing in the UK. This article addresses two sizable gaps in knowledge concerning male part-timers: are men's part-time jobs of lower quality than men's full-time jobs? Are male part-timers more or less job-satisfied compared to their full-time peers? A fundamental part of both interrogations is whether men's part-time employment varies by occupational class. The article is motivated by the large body of work on female part-timers. Its theoretical framework is rooted in one of the most controversial discussions in the sociology of women workers: the “grateful slave” debate that emerged in the 1990s when researchers sought to explain why so many women expressed job satisfaction with low-quality part-time jobs. Innovatively, this article draws upon those contentious ideas to provide new insights into male, rather than female, part-time employment. Based upon analysis of a large quantitative data set, the results provide clear evidence of low-quality male part-time employment in the UK, when compared with men's full-time jobs. Men working part-time also express deteriorating satisfaction with jobs overall and in several specific dimensions of their jobs. Male part-timers in lower occupational class positions retain a clear “lead” both in bad job quality and low satisfaction. The article asks whether decreasingly satisfied male part-time workers should be termed “ungrateful slaves?” It unpacks the “grateful slave” metaphor and, after doing so, rejects its value for the ongoing analysis of part-time jobs in the formal labor market.     

Appraising a Dichotomy: A Review of ‘Part-time/Full-time’ in the Study of Women's Employment in Britain

A key theme in women's studies is the move away from an over-reliance on treating the sexes as two separate groups onto theorizing diversity amongst women. The limitations of a ‘sexual dichotomism’ in the face of diversity is well-recognized, yet in mainstream research into women's experiences diversity is far from being a popular area of study. The tendency in the literature on women's employment is still to oversimplify any divisions into broad groupings, and in particular into dichotomies. Focusing on the popular dichotomy of part-time/full-time employment, the paper highlights two roles that the dichotomy has been expected to perform. The success it has achieved and the problems it has faced in performing these two roles are examined. The conclusion is that whilst the part-time/full-time dichotomy is particularly valuable in depicting two differentiated labour market positions, a move beyond the dichotomy would facilitate a greater understanding of the variations in women's employment experiences over the life-course. The theoretical progression from dichotomizing to disaggregation is ready to happen in the field of women's employment.     

The Motherhood Penalty at Midlife: Long‐Term Effects of Children on Women's Careers

The authors build on prior research on the motherhood wage penalty to examine whether the career penalties faced by mothers change over the life course. They broaden the focus beyond wages to also consider labor force participation and occupational status and use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to model the changing impact of motherhood as women age from their 20s to their 50s (n = 4,730). They found that motherhood is “costly” to women's careers, but the effects on all 3 labor force outcomes attenuate at older ages. Children reduce women's labor force participation, but this effect is strongest when women are younger and is eliminated by the 40s and 50s. Mothers also seem able to regain ground in terms of occupational status. The wage penalty for having children varies by parity, persisting across the life course only for women who have 3 or more children.     

Gender and migration: geographical mobility and the wife's sacrifice

Although it has become almost axiomatic in much contemporary sociology that geographical mobility for husband's career reasons is disruptive of wives' labour market careers, there have been few systematical empirical inquiries into the issue. This study reports findings from a survey of in-migrants in Aberdeen in 1986. Considerations relating to male partner's occupational career were the main factor accounting for the in-migration of married women, but single women were more likely to come for educational or employment reasons. Levels of grievance among in-migrant partnered women about the consequences of this move for their employment were low but there was some evidence that women in-migrant for such reasons saw the move as less helpful careerwise than other in-migrant women. More, however, saw the move as helpful or making no difference, rather than being a hindrance. Many respondents were able to find what they regarded as suitable new employment and others saw themselves at the time of the move primarily as mothers or housewives. The research findings lend support for the view that migrant wives' roles are orientated primarily around their husband's occupational concerns but this need not be detrimental to their own labour market activity since their skills, aptitudes and resources facilitate their adaptation to the new situation.     

Wie die Mutter, so die Tochter?

In analyses that deal with occupational mobility the question as to how the mother’s occupational status influences the process of occupational status attainment usually is passed over. Here we formulate hypotheses on over-time and life course dynamics of her influence: mothers’ (and fathers’) status transfer for cohorts of daughters born between 1927 and 1965 and additionally for labour market careers. Sons are excluded in the analytical model because the mother’s job appears not to be important for their job status locations. The hypotheses are tested in a cluster adjusted regression analysis. The German database contains 4043 job spells of 1760 women and the two pooled Dutch sets of data include 4513 job spells of 1623 female respondents. Our results show that in recent decennia the influence of the occupational status of both parents on their daughter’s job status has decreased in a similar fashion. We conclude that a continuing trend towards a decrease of social inequality in the process of occupational status attainment is applicable to the influence of the father and the mother. Over the course of the daughter’s career, however, her occupational status becomes increasingly related to that of her mother. This result indicates that the occupational role model of the mother seems to be important for understanding patterns of female occupational immobility.     

Women and class – a problematic relationship?

The relationship between gender and class is important and controversial within sociology and has significant theoretical and political dimensions. But how do women experience class?Is it a meaningful dimension of everyday life The experiential aspects of class were explored with two hundred women, A third of them perceived social class m terms perceived of income. Others perceived it in terms of occupation their parents. their partner's or their own type of housing or the need to work to earn a living These different perceptions relate to women's own occupational class and educational background more closely than they relate to the occupational class of their partners. Women occupied full-time as housewives did not appear to differ from those m full or part-time paid employment m terms of their perceptions of class, nor did they experience their situation as marginal to the class structure of society. Although women's class does count there arc problems with assigning individual women to classes solely on the basis of their current position in the occupational hierarchy.     

Women,work, and family in the Czech Republic—and comparisons with the West

What are the work-family experiences of Czech women, and to what extent are there similarities and differences with women in the West? Drawing on a cross-national survey and other findings, this paper points out that unlike the extensive part-time employment of many Western European women, most Czech women in the post-Communist era have continued to combine full-time employment with family roles. Maternity and parental leaves, kindergartens, and other policies have been important supports. It is argued that employment and economic independence remain important to Czech women, and although gender differentiation in women's domestic activities and men's preponderance in upper-level jobs in the economy and government is recognized, Western attributions of patriarchy have been resisted. Since family life is highly valued, many have seen women as advantaged in their greater family involvement and integration of both family and employment roles. Rather than opposition between men and women, Czechs generally point to partnership and overall social equality. During Communism Czechs learned that ‘time at work’ does not equal productivity, and women practiced an informal flextime to aid work-family integration. This ‘self-management’ of work time and of work and family activities is cited as a component of Czech women‘s sense of efficacy and gender equality. An interesting question for the post-Communist success of Czech women and work organizations is whether women's interest in self-management will be met by the support of managers and of workplace cultures and structures.     

Polarization in Mothers' Employment

Using secondary analysis of large, nationally representative government data sets, we explore the interaction of occupational class and the age of youngest child in mothers' labour force participation. We show that levels of full-time working vary markedly in each occupational class and by age of youngest child. Within part-time working, the principal form of labour force participation for mothers, there are marked class differences in eligibility for ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’ employment rights, as well as in the ‘quality’ of part-time working. We suggest that the impact on mothers' employment of the age of the youngest child is mediated by mothers' occupational class and conclude that there is growing evidence of polarities in the employment experience of mothers in different occupational classes.     

How Do Children Matter? A Comparison of Gender Earnings Inequality for Young Adults in the Former East Germany and the Former West Germany

The former Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) differed sharply in their family policies. We follow 1950s and early 1960s birth cohorts from their first jobs to 1989 to see in what ways having children affected earnings for women and men. For the FRG, we find that being a parent had stronger earnings effects (positive for men and negative for women) than in the GDR, with much of this impact mediated by employment hours for women. This does not mean that having children was unimportant for women's and men's earnings in the GDR, but it indicates that the less variable life course led to more society‐wide than individual‐level impact. Further, in the East, some young women balanced family and employment by taking jobs below their qualifications, and this reduced their earnings.     

Women's Employment in Transition, 1992–4: the Case of Poland

Since the early 1990s the Polish economy has, in the move towards a market economy, undergone substantial economic reforms which resulted initially in a severe recession and notably in widespread unemployment. In a country where women have traditionally played a major role in the workforce it is pertinent to ask how their role has been affected during the early years of transition to a market economy, what factors explain this, and what their employment prospects are likely to be in a free market economy. After sketching the key features of women's employment in Poland pre-transition the article then addresses these questions using data drawn mainly from the Labour Force Surveys of 1992 and 1994. It finds that women's labour market position has been changing and in 1994 could be said to be mixed: while on the one hand it seems to be deteriorating (rising rates of inactivity and unemployment, the feminization of part-time work), on the other women seem to have been relatively protected from the worst effects of marketization and are in a better position than men according to some unemployment indicators. Prospects for women's employment under a free market economy also appear to be mixed, with much depending on whether the Polish government introduces a framework of national measures to support and encourage women who enter into paid employment.     

THE DIFFERENTIAL EFFECT OF LABOR MARKET CONTEXT ON MARGINAL EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES

Transformation of the labor market creates a complex and dynamic environment where jobs and skills are exchanged. Studies suggest that contemporary industrial shifts provided less opportunity than in the past, and that technological change led to a complicated melange of employment outcomes. Many of the new jobs are characterized by a series of negative qualities related to income and hours. Accordingly, this analysis concentrates on inadequate employment through low-wage work and involuntary part-time work. I examine the effect of contextual factors, specifically area levels of occupational sex-segregation and the size of the service sector industry, on men and women's marginal employment outcomes. Several findings stand out. First, women post higher chances of working for low-wages than their male counterparts. However, employment in the expanding service sector does reduce men and women's chances of experiencing part-time work. Second, the protection afforded by individual level, human capital qualities remains relatively constant for women across metro areas, but labor market context significantly affects women's odds of employment marginalization. Context is not as salient for men, but the value of their personal attributes vary across labor markets. Finally, women working in areas with higher levels of occupational sex-segregation were relatively worse off than those in areas with more integration. Industrial restructuring clearly contributed to recent shifts in U.S. employment and inequality. Studies suggest that contemporary industrial shifts have provided less opportunity than in the past, greater inequality between rich and poor, and a complicated melange of inadequate employment outcomes (Colclough and Tolbert 1992; Farley 1996; Harrison and Bluestone 1988; Morris, Bernhardt, and Handcock 1994; Sassen 1994). Deindustrialization, as it is sometimes called, offers opportunity for highly-educated, skilled, or technologically-innovative men and women. However, lower skilled workers or those with less education may face relatively good job markets filled with positions that are low quality in terms of wages, hours, or benefits. This bifurcation of work is credited with not only reducing the sex-wage gap, but also increasing inequality within sex groups (Bernhardt, Morris, and Handcock 1995). By employing a new structuralist approach and focusing on the area opportunity structure, along with the traditional human capital framework, I link both the local labor market context and individual qualities that affect employment outcomes (Browne 1997; Cotter et al. 1997; McCall 2000). In this article, I examine the effect of contextual factors, specifically the area industrial composition and the openness of the labor market, on men and women's marginal employment outcomes during the early 1990s.     

Does higher education make a difference? The influence of educational attainment on women's and men's nonstandard employment outcomes

Some studies suggest that women and the less educated are more likely to be employed in nonstandard work. However, conflicting evidence has indicated that temporary, part-time, and nonstandard self-employment has diffused across different social groups and levels of education. Using pooled data from the 1997–2018 Canadian Labour Force Surveys, this study explores the changing relationship between higher education, gender, and employment outcomes. Taking a multiple logistic regression approach, this study accomplishes three objectives: (1) to examine the relationship between gender and education among different forms of nonstandard employment; (2) to investigate the changes of different forms of nonstandard employment between 1997 to 2018; (3) to analyze the association between men's and women's education and their likelihood of different forms of nonstandard employment are explored. The findings suggest the feminization of employment norms, in which men and women have had some convergence in certain types of nonstandard employment. This result holds across most levels of education, but is more pronounced for women and men with higher levels of education.     

Work time. Leisure time. On women's temporal and economic well-being in Europe

In the study of work time, a wealth of influential ideas has emerged about the potentially damaging impact of too many hours in the labour market on the rest of peoples' lives, as well as about the negative economic ramifications of short hours working. The paper focuses on the temporal and economic well-being of female employees in Europe, stimulated by the importance of work time in debates over time poverty and work life integration. It asks whether women in shorter hours jobs are happiest with their time for paid work and leisure, but also what might the lower wages from reduced hours working mean for women, particularly those in low-level occupations. The paper shows first that although working fewer hours contributes to women's satisfaction with their time in many countries, it is long full-time hours that have the strongest (negative) relationship with women's temporal well-being across Europe. Second, the paper demonstrates the damaging impact of working in low-level occupations – both part-time and full-time – on the economic well-being of women's households. It stresses the importance of a combined work time and occupational class approach in the ongoing analysis of women's working lives.     

Jobs for Mothers: Married Women's Labor Force Reentry and Part-Time,Temporary Employment in Japan

This paper explains the increase in middle-aged women reentering the labor force in Japan and their concentration in part-time or temporary employment. Existing explanations attribute women's concentration in part-time employment too narrowly to supply or demand factors. In Japan, both the labor supply of middle-aged women and the demand for part-time workers have increased, but these conditions channel middle-aged women into part-time or temporary employment only when systematic barriers obstruct their access to full-time jobs. Because it plays an important role in women's employment decisions, the rigidity of standard, full-time employment needs greater attention in studies of nonstandard, atypical types of work.     

More or Less Unequal? Evidence on the Pay of Men and Women from the British Birth Cohort Studies

Gender pay differences are not merely a problem for women returning to work and part‐time employees, but also for those in full‐time, continuous careers. In data from cohort studies, the gender wage gap for full‐time workers in their early thirties fell between 1978 and 2000. This equalization reflects improvements in women’s education and experience rather more than a move towards equal treatment. Indeed, had the typical woman full‐timer in 2000 been paid at men’s rates she would have actually received higher pay than the typical man. Within one cohort, passing from age 33 to 42, gender inequality increased. This was partly due to differences in the qualifications and experience of the women in employment at those points, but unequal treatment also rose among women employed full time at both ages.     

‘We've Got One of Those’: The Peripheral Status of Women in Male Dominated Industries

This article uses evidence from 269 interviews in five companies to consider whether (i) equal opportunity laws, policies and practices, (ii) more women gaining post-entry professional qualifications, establishing themselves on the lower rungs of hitherto male careers, and working full-time, combined with (iii) projected skill shortages, are likely to break down gender segmentation and lead to greater equality in employment during the 1990s. The evidence suggests that even females who start strongly and appear potential high-fliers are still being obstructed by harsh, in some respects, and in other ways patronizing, workplace cultures, coupled with demands for career commitment that are incompatible with the domestic responsibilities which it is assumed women will adopt, and which the majority are in fact still adopting at least at certain stages during their working lives. The effects in the companies studied were to deflect women out of mainstream careers into peripheral occupations, or into peripheral jobs within skilled mainstream occupations. In these companies neither the men nor the exceptional women who were succeeding appeared a likely source of pressure for change, and male domination remained fully compatible with the firms' preferred skill formation strategies.     

Dynamics of Domestic Labor Across Short‐ and Long‐Distance Family Relocations

Family relocations within developed countries are argued to have gendered consequences for paid employment, with men's careers improving and women's careers deteriorating. However, little is known about their potential relationships with outcomes in other life domains, including partnered men's and women's relative shares of domestic labor. The authors addressed this gap in knowledge by theorizing and examining how within‐couple gender gaps in domestic work evolve across short‐ and long‐distance family relocations over the life course, paying attention to the over‐time dynamics before and after event occurrence. To accomplish this, they used 12 years of panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey and panel regression models. The results indicated that family relocations widen the within‐couple gender gap in weekly housework hours, largely because of shifts in women's employment situation and fertility episodes that accompany residential relocations.     

Individual and Familial Determinants of Married Arab Israeli Women's Labor Force Participation: Trends of Change and Stability

Although the Arab population in Israel has undergone important economic and social changes in the past decades, the labor force participation of Arab women, particularly married women, has remained limited. This study uses census data to learn about the individual and familial factors associated with the entry into paid work of married Arab women and examines the extent to which these factors have changed over time. A major advantage is that the study distinguishes between the Muslim, Christian, and Druze populations, who markedly differ in their demographic, social, and cultural characteristics. Results from logistic regression models and standardization analyses reveal that the growth in employment experienced by Arab women was associated with the increasing education of both wives and husbands. However, the returns to education significantly decreased over time, particularly among Druze women, suggesting it has become more difficult for highly educated women to find employment. Results further show that the growth in employment experienced by Muslim and Christian women was related both to a decline in fertility and to a decrease in the negative returns to having children. Overall, findings underscore the structural barriers that limit Arab Israeli women's employment opportunities and raise concerns about their future occupational prospects.     

Child‐free and unmarried: Changes in the life planning of young east German women

Using evidence from demographic and survey data, this research examines how one decade of postsocialism has changed the life planning of young East German women. Aggregate data reflect marriage and fertility postponement and increased nonmarital birth rates and cohabitation. The analysis shows East German women's “stubbornness” ( Dölling, 2003 ) in adhering to life perspectives in line with the German Democratic Republic (GDR) standard biography (high nonmarital childbearing, high work orientation, rejection of the homemaker status, desire to combine work and family). The most important findings are that (a) motherhood is postponed to increase child‐free time, (b) cohabitation is increasingly becoming an alternative to marriage, (c) marriage (but not partnership) is increasingly optional for childbearing, and (d) employment is prioritized over family formation.     

Challenging transitions? Assessing the occupational mobility patterns of US immigrants by gender

This article uses the New Immigrant Survey to assess the occupational mobility of US immigrants. Estimates from OLS and Heckman selection models show the occupational mobility of immigrants follows a U-shaped pattern: immigrants arriving in the United States see their occupational status decline before it gradually improves. However, even 9 years after coming to the United States, the occupational status of immigrants remains lower than prior to their arrival in the country. Our findings also suggest that immigrant women with higher occupational status tend to move more often to the United States than immigrant men. Conversely, immigrant women are more likely than men to experience career interruptions after migration. Finally, occupational employment growth rates (defined as the growth rate in the number of jobs for an occupation) have a positive impact on both men and women immigrants' ability to recover their occupational status, though the impact appears to be greater for immigrant women.