Full-time hours, part-time work: Questioning the sufficiency of working hours as a measure of employment status

Although distinctions between full-time and part-time work are vital for understanding inequalities at work and home, consensus and critical reflection are lacking in how employment status should be defined. Full-time and part-time work are often represented as a binary split between those working under or over a specific number of hours. However, this paper, using exploratory mixed methods, evidences problems with assumptions based on working-hour thresholds and highlights the importance of workplace culture and household contexts. Using the UK Labour Force Survey we reveal ambiguities in the reporting of employment status for 12% of workers when comparing definitions based on number of working days, working hours and self-assessment. Ambiguities are particularly prevalent among working mothers, with almost a third who would be regarded as working full-time using hour-based measures classified as ambiguous according to the measures used here. In-depth interviews with parents who self-classify as part-time workers despite working over 35 hours a week, reveal mechanisms behind ambiguity within this group linked to organisational norms, previous working hours and divisions of household labour. The paper therefore argues workplace and household contexts are crucial to understanding employment status and recommends this should be taken into account in new multidimensional measures.

The short or long end of the stick? Mothers’ social position and self‐employment status from a comparative perspective

Women with dependent children have repeatedly been shown to be more likely to be self-employed than other women. The mumpreneurship thesis explains this motherhood effect as a preference-based strategy to meet both good worker and good mother norms. The disadvantaged worker thesis argues that mothers in weak labour market positions are pushed into self-employment because of work–family conflict. Exploring patterns of motherhood effects across 23 high- and middle-income countries, I argue that the mumpreneurship and disadvantaged worker theses should not be considered as conflicting hypotheses, but rather as addressing separate social position groups. I identify four clusters of countries where either one, both or neither of the two hypotheses can be confirmed. Country-level analyses indicate that more negative attitudes towards housewives are associated with larger motherhood premiums for women in high social positions, whereas higher enrolment and smaller classes in pre-primary education increase the motherhood premium for all groups

The short or long end of the stick? Mothers’ social position and self‐employment status from a comparative perspective

Women with dependent children have repeatedly been shown to be more likely to be self-employed than other women. The mumpreneurship thesis explains this motherhood effect as a preference-based strategy to meet both good worker and good mother norms. The disadvantaged worker thesis argues that mothers in weak labour market positions are pushed into self-employment because of work–family conflict. Exploring patterns of motherhood effects across 23 high- and middle-income countries, I argue that the mumpreneurship and disadvantaged worker theses should not be considered as conflicting hypotheses, but rather as addressing separate social position groups. I identify four clusters of countries where either one, both or neither of the two hypotheses can be confirmed. Country-level analyses indicate that more negative attitudes towards housewives are associated with larger motherhood premiums for women in high social positions, whereas higher enrolment and smaller classes in pre-primary education increase the motherhood premium for all groups

Feasibility of creating an EU database on working condition clauses in collective bargaining agreements. The case of gender

In this report, we explore the feasibility of a European database of working conditions clauses in collective agreements in EU countries. Our proposal builds on the methodology developed by the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the WageIndicator Foundation to build an international database of collective agreements and in the BARCOM (VS/2016/0106) and COLBAR Europe (VS/2019/0077) projects to collect and code European collective agreements. It also builds on the CNAM-CEET CAGE project which has developed a research infrastructure in France to study the outcomes of negotiations on gender professional equality and employer behaviour. The idea is to combine structured information from an employer-level survey with coded information from a database of collective agreements and unstructured data from an archive recording the full content of the OCR processed texts of collective agreements. Such an infrastructure would allow better analysis of the bargaining process, bargaining outcomes and employer behaviour. Using the example of gender equality clauses, we demonstrate the feasibility of building such an infrastructure and the added value of using coded information and text mining methods for comparative analysis. Two European surveys, the ECS and ESES, can be combined with the database of collective agreements at individual and/or sectoral level. We explore how collective agreements at sector and company level should be collected to achieve some form of representativity.Dans ce rapport, nous explorons la faisabilité d'une base de données européenne relative aux clauses concernant les conditions de travail dans les conventions collectives des pays de l'UE. Notre proposition s'appuie sur la méthodologie développée par l'Université d'Amsterdam (UvA) et la Fondation WageIndicator pour construire une base de données internationale de conventions collectives et dans les projets BARCOM (VS/2016/0106) et COLBAR Europe (VS/2019/0077) pour collecter et coder les conventions collectives européennes. Il s'appuie également sur le projet CAGE du CNAM-CEET qui a développé une infrastructure de recherche en France pour étudier les résultats des négociations sur l'égalité professionnelle femmes-hommes et le comportement des employeurs. L'idée est de combiner des informations structurées provenant d'une enquête auprès des employeurs avec des informations codées provenant d'une base de données de conventions collectives et des données non structurées provenant d'une archive enregistrant le contenu intégral des textes océrisé des conventions collectives. Une telle infrastructure permettrait une meilleure analyse du processus de négociation, des résultats de la négociation et du comportement des employeurs. En utilisant l'exemple des clauses d'égalité professionelle femmes-hommes, nous démontrons la faisabilité de la construction d'une telle infrastructure et la valeur ajoutée de l'utilisation des informations codées et des méthodes d'exploration de texte pour l'analyse comparative. Deux enquêtes européennes, l'ECS et l'ESES, peuvent être combinées avec la base de données des conventions collectives au niveau individuel et/ou sectoriel. Nous étudions comment les conventions collectives au niveau du secteur et de l'entreprise devraient être collectées pour atteindre une certaine forme de représentativité

Feasibility of creating an EU database on working condition clauses in collective bargaining agreements. The case of gender

In this report, we explore the feasibility of a European database of working conditions clauses in collective agreements in EU countries. Our proposal builds on the methodology developed by the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the WageIndicator Foundation to build an international database of collective agreements and in the BARCOM (VS/2016/0106) and COLBAR Europe (VS/2019/0077) projects to collect and code European collective agreements. It also builds on the CNAM-CEET CAGE project which has developed a research infrastructure in France to study the outcomes of negotiations on gender professional equality and employer behaviour. The idea is to combine structured information from an employer-level survey with coded information from a database of collective agreements and unstructured data from an archive recording the full content of the OCR processed texts of collective agreements. Such an infrastructure would allow better analysis of the bargaining process, bargaining outcomes and employer behaviour. Using the example of gender equality clauses, we demonstrate the feasibility of building such an infrastructure and the added value of using coded information and text mining methods for comparative analysis. Two European surveys, the ECS and ESES, can be combined with the database of collective agreements at individual and/or sectoral level. We explore how collective agreements at sector and company level should be collected to achieve some form of representativity.Dans ce rapport, nous explorons la faisabilité d'une base de données européenne relative aux clauses concernant les conditions de travail dans les conventions collectives des pays de l'UE. Notre proposition s'appuie sur la méthodologie développée par l'Université d'Amsterdam (UvA) et la Fondation WageIndicator pour construire une base de données internationale de conventions collectives et dans les projets BARCOM (VS/2016/0106) et COLBAR Europe (VS/2019/0077) pour collecter et coder les conventions collectives européennes. Il s'appuie également sur le projet CAGE du CNAM-CEET qui a développé une infrastructure de recherche en France pour étudier les résultats des négociations sur l'égalité professionnelle femmes-hommes et le comportement des employeurs. L'idée est de combiner des informations structurées provenant d'une enquête auprès des employeurs avec des informations codées provenant d'une base de données de conventions collectives et des données non structurées provenant d'une archive enregistrant le contenu intégral des textes océrisé des conventions collectives. Une telle infrastructure permettrait une meilleure analyse du processus de négociation, des résultats de la négociation et du comportement des employeurs. En utilisant l'exemple des clauses d'égalité professionelle femmes-hommes, nous démontrons la faisabilité de la construction d'une telle infrastructure et la valeur ajoutée de l'utilisation des informations codées et des méthodes d'exploration de texte pour l'analyse comparative. Deux enquêtes européennes, l'ECS et l'ESES, peuvent être combinées avec la base de données des conventions collectives au niveau individuel et/ou sectoriel. Nous étudions comment les conventions collectives au niveau du secteur et de l'entreprise devraient être collectées pour atteindre une certaine forme de représentativité

Working Women Worldwide. Age Effects in Female Labor Force Participation in 117 Countries

In this article, we investigate the effects of economic conditions, families, education, and gender ideologies on the labor force participation rates of women in eleven age groups in 117 countries. We find that participation rates of young and older women are partly explained by sector sizes and the level of economic development. However, to explain the labor force participation rates of women between 25 and 55 years, we need to study families and gender ideologies. We find these women are more likely to participate when paid maternity leave schemes exist, enrollment in pre-primary education is higher, and countries are less religious

Full-time hours, part-time work: questioning the sufficiency of working hours as a measure of employment status

Although distinctions between full-time and part-time work are vital for understanding inequalities at work and home, consensus and critical reflection are lacking in how employment status should be defined. Full-time and part-time work are often represented as a binary split between those working under or over a specific number of hours. However, this paper, using exploratory mixed methods, evidences problems with assumptions based on working-hour thresholds and highlights the importance of workplace culture and household contexts. Using the UK Labour Force Survey we reveal ambiguities in the reporting of employment status for 12% of workers when comparing definitions based on number of working days, working hours and self-assessment. Ambiguities are particularly prevalent among working mothers with almost a third, who would be regarded as working full-time using hour-based measures, classified as ambiguous according to the measures used here. In-depth interviews with parents who self-classify as part-time workers, despite working over 35 hours a week, reveal mechanisms behind ambiguity within this group linked to organisational norms, previous working hours and divisions of household labour. The paper therefore argues workplace and household contexts are crucial to understanding employment status and recommends this should be taken into account in new multidimensional measures