The Part-Time Penalty

Anders Frederiksen () and Louis Junker-Jensen
Additional contact information
Anders Frederiksen: Aarhus University

No 18401, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We study the part-time penalty. Using Danish register data, the Danish Labor Force Survey, and hospital personnel records, we show that the pay gap between part-time and full-time workers is sizable and increases over the career because the two groups accumulate different levels of human capital over time. Our best estimates of the part-time penalty are for nurses. The penalty is 14 percent at the beginning of the career and increases by 0.5 percent each year. This pay gap is closely related to the development of nurses' competence level, highlighting the persistent effects that part-time work has on lifetime earnings.

Keywords: part-time penalty; career; gender; pay gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J22 J24 J3 J31 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18401.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:iza:izadps:dp18401

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().