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Purpose - This paper aims to measure and analyse the wage gap between male part- and full-timers in the private sector of six European countries, i,e. Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Design/methodology/approach - Using a unique matched employer-employee data set providing harmonised information on six European countries (the 1995 European Structure of Earnings Survey), the empirical strategy is based on the estimation of standard Mincer wage equations and the Oaxaca and Ransom wage gap decomposition technique. First, individual gross hourly wages are regressed on a set of human capital variables only and second, a wider range of control variables related to e.g. occupation, sector of activity, firm size, and level of wage bargaining is inserted. Findings -The study finds that the raw gap in hourly gross pay amounts to 16 per cent of a male part-timer's wage in Spain, to 24 per cent in Belgium, to 28 per cent in Denmark and Italy, to 67 per cent in the UK and to 149 per cent in Ireland. Human capital differences explain between 31 per cent of the observed wage gap in the UK and 71 per cent in Denmark. When the whole set of explanatory variables is included in the wage regressions, a much larger part of the gap is explained by differences in observed characteristics (except in Italy). Research limitation/implications - Unfortunately, the paper is not able to correct for workers' potential self-selection into part-time and full-time employment. Results suggest that policy initiatives to promote lifelong learning and training are of great importance to help part-timers catch up with full-timers in terms of human capital. Moreover, except for Italy, they point to a persisting problem of occupational and sectoral segregation between men working part-time and full-time which requires renewed policy attention. Originality/value - Economic theory advances a number of reasons for the existence of a wage gap between part-time and full-time workers. Empirical work has concentrated on the wage effects of part-time work for women. For men, much less empirical evidence exists, mainly because of lacking data. This paper therefore makes a valuable contribution. The more so given that (to the best of our knowledge) there exists no cross-national evidence with respect to men's part-time wage penalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how child-related public policies influence women's employment in Europe. The analysis compares the difference in employment status between partnered mothers and nonmothers across the EU-15 using a wide range of self-constructed indicators of child policies such as childcare provision, parental leave, and tax-cash benefits. Using the recycled predictions method, it is possible to isolate the impact of the presence of a child from other characteristics likely to influence women's labor-market outcomes. Country-specific employment gaps among women are computed at different ages for the youngest child, for different outcomes (inactivity and part-time or full-time work), and for different levels of education. The main conclusion is that when it comes to securing equal labor-market access and conditions for mothers of young children and non-mothers, public childcare provision has the strongest impact. In the absence of public childcare, not even the most highly educated mothers can cope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares EU-15 members' public policies to help women have children while pursuing a career: public childcare, maternity/paternity leave, childcare benefits. Parental leave is assessed from a very critical stance. Based on existing theoretical and empirical findings on the effects of child policies on female employment and on previously built indicators summarizing quantitative and qualitative early childhood data (2003), the paper (1) assesses countries' relative positions in each of the policy fields; (2) draws up a new country typology by showing which type of policy is most promoted and whether countries choose either one policy or sequentially/simultaneously implement a bundle of policies. Results suggest three groups of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]