Is part-time employment here to stay?

Nicole Bosch (), Anja Deelen () and Rob Euwals ()

CPB Discussion Papers from CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis

Abstract: To balance work and family responsibilities, the Netherlands have chosen a rather unique model that combines a high female employment rate with a high part-time employment rate. The model is likely to be the result of (societal) preferences as the removal of institutional barriers, like lower marginal tax rates for partners and better childcare facilities, has not led to more working hours. It is, however, an open question whether the model is here to stay or whether younger generations of women will choose full-time jobs in the near future. In this study, we investigate the development of working hours over successive generations of women using the Dutch Labour Force Survey 1992-2005. We find evidence of an increasing propensity to work part-time over the successive generations, and a decreasing propensity to work full-time for the generations born after the early 1950s. Our results are in line with results of studies on social norms and attitudes as they find a similar pattern over the successive generations. It therefore seems likely that without changes in (societal) preferences the part-time employment model is indeed here to stay for some more time.

Keywords: female labour supply; working hours (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-lab
Date: Written 2008-02

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cpb.nl/eng/pub/cpbreeksen/discussie/100/disc100.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CPB Discussion Papers from CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by ().