Part-time Employment Can Be a Life-time Setback for Earnings: A Study of British Women 1975–2001

Sara Connolly () and Mary Gregory ()
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Sara Connolly: University of East Anglia

No 3101, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Two particular features of the position of women in the British labour market are the extensive role of part-time work and the large part-time pay penalty. Part-time work features most prominently when women are in their 30s, the peak childcare years and, particularly for more educated women, a crucial period for career building. This makes it essential to understand its impact on women’s subsequent earnings trajectories. We find that the wage return to part-time experience is low – negligible in lower skill occupations. Even more important channels contributing to the pay disadvantage of women working part-time are job changing, particularly when this involves occupational downgrading. Downgrading can lead to a permanent pay disadvantage for women following a spell in part-time work.

Keywords: over-qualification; life-cycle; earnings trajectories; part-time work; occupation; female employment; downgrade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 C25 C33 C35 J16 J22 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2007-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Published - published in: Oxford Economic Papers, 2009, 61(S1), i76-97

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Working Paper: Part-time Employment Can Be a Life-time Setback for Earnings: A Study of British Women 1975-2001 (2007)
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