How Bad is Involuntary Part-time Work?

Daniel Borowczyk-Martins and Etienne Lalé ()

Bristol Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: We use a set of empirical and analytical tools to conduct parallel analyses of involuntary part-time work and unemployment in the U.S. labor market. In the empirical analysis, we document that the similar cyclical behavior of involuntary part-time work and unemployment masks major differences in the underlying dynamics. Unlike unemployment, variations in involuntary part-time work are mostly explained by its interaction with full-time employment, and since the Great Recession employed workers are at a greater risk of working part-time involuntarily than being unemployed. In the theoretical analysis, we show that the higher probability of regaining full-time employment is key to distinguish involuntary part-time work from unemployment from a worker’s perspective. We also quantify the welfare costs of cyclical fluctuations in involuntary part-time work, and the amplification of these costs arising from the elevated levels of involuntary part-time work observed since the Great Recession.

Keywords: Employment; Involuntary part-time work; Welfare; Great Recession. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 E32 J21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages.
Date: 2015-08-19, Revised 2016-01-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger, nep-lma and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/efm/media/workingpapers/w ... pdffiles/dp15664.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: How Bad Is Involuntary Part-time Work? (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bri:uobdis:15/664

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Bristol Economics Discussion Papers from School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vicky Jackson ().