Part-time employment as a way to increase women’s employment: (Where) does it work?

an article by Paolo Barbieri, Giorgio Cutuli, Raffaele Guetto and Stefani Scherer (University of Trento, Italy) published in International Journal of Comparative Sociology Volume 60 Issue 4 (August 2019)

Abstract

Part-time employment has repeatedly been proposed as a solution for integrating women into the labor market; however, empirical evidence supporting a causal link is mixed. In this text, we investigate the extent to which increasing part-time employment is a valid means of augmenting women’s labor market participation.

We pay particular attention to the institutional context and the related characteristics of part-time employment in European countries to test the conditions under which this solution is a viable option.

The results reveal that part-time employment may strengthen female employment in Continental Europe and especially in Southern Europe, where an increase in part-time employment—even if it is demand-side driven—leads to greater employment participation among women.

We also discuss some policy implications and trade-offs: Although part-time work can lead to higher numbers of employed women, it does so at the cost of increasing gendered labor market segregation.

We analyze data from the European Labor Force Survey (EU-LFS) 1992–2011 for 19 countries and 188 regions and exploit regional variation over time while controlling for time-constant regional characteristics, time-varying regional labor market features, and (time-varying) confounding factors at the national level.

---

‘I am not alone’: Understanding public support for the welfare state

an article by Klarita Gërxhani (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and Ferry Koster (Erasmus University Rotterdam, University of Amsterdam and University of Leiden) published in International Sociology Volume 27 Number 6 (November 2012)

Abstract

This article explores to what extent and how individuals’ welfare state attitudes relate to their subjective assessment of the available social support.

Using various sociological and socio-psychological theories the authors first provide a theoretical analysis of the micro–macro links between perceived social support (micro), social trust in support availability (macro) and public attitudes towards welfare states (micro).

An empirical test based on a large cross-country dataset of 31,122 respondents in 25 European countries shows that the more welfare is provided by the state, the less of it is desired in countries where individuals have the general belief that they can rely on each other for support. Importantly, only when considered jointly, do welfare state provision and social trust in support availability become essential in explaining welfare state attitudes.

---