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Objective: This study examines whether paternal part‐time employment is related to greater involvement by fathers in child care and housework, both while fathers are working part‐time and after they return to full‐time employment. Background: The study draws on four strands of theory—time availability, bargaining, gender ideology, and gender construction. It studies couples' division of labor in Germany, where policies increasingly support a dual‐earner, dual‐carer model. Method: The study uses data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel from 1991 to 2015 on employed adult fathers living together with at least one child younger than age 17 and the mother. The analytic sample comprises 51,230 observations on 8,915 fathers. Fixed effects regression techniques are used to estimate the effect of (previous) part‐time employment on fathers' child‐care hours, housework hours, and share of child care and housework. Results: Fathers did more child care and housework while they worked part time. Yet, most fathers reverted to previous levels of involvement after returning to full‐time work. The only exception was fathers with partners in full‐time employment, who spent more time doing child care and took on a greater share of housework after part‐time employment than before. Conclusion: The findings are largely consistent with the time availability perspective, although the results for fathers with full‐time employed partners indicate that the relative resources and gender ideology perspectives have some explanatory power as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the implementation gap in the provision of work–life policies in Singapore. While both employers and government in principle endorse the ideology of flexibility in the work place, this has not yet translated into widely adopted policies. This study examines barriers and facilitators to part‐time work, and highlights organisational and managerial factors contributing to the implementation gap. It is imperative in ageing societies with declining fertility rates that flexibility be mainstreamed to encourage optimum labour force participation. For both married women with childcare responsibilities and older adults, flexiwork is central to their continued economic participation. In particular, part‐time work enables mothers to meaningfully integrate work and family responsibilities, and allows older adults to reap the benefits of economic engagement post‐retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on women's experiences with work schedules and flexibility tends to focus on professional women in high-paying careers, despite women's far greater prevalence in low-wage jobs. This paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of the work-hours problems faced by women precariously employed in low-wage jobs by addressing how work-on-demand scheduling and other features of part-time labour in the neoliberal economy limit women's ability to make ends meet. Using data from 17 in-depth interviews, we identify four themes - unpredictable schedules, inadequate hours, time theft and punishment-and-control via hours-reduction - and the problems they present. Results suggest that much-championed flexible work policies that seek to encourage women's career advancement may have little bearing on the work-hours dilemmas faced by low-wage women workers. We conclude that social change efforts need to encompass work policies geared to low-wage workers, such as guaranteed minimum hours and increases in the minimum wage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Precarious employment is one of the social determinants of health. In 2010, 34.4% of Japanese workers fell into this employment category. The purpose of our study was to assess whether the use of annual health check-ups varied by worker contract type. Methods Using 2007 nationally representative survey data, we compared the annual health check-up compliance of permanently employed full-time workers versus that of precariously employed workers (hourly, dispatched, and fixed-term workers). Results Dispatched workers and hourly workers received health check-ups less often compared with permanent workers. Hourly young male workers received health check-ups five times less frequently than permanent workers. The percentage of workers who consulted a physician after receiving advice to do so did not differ by employment types, except in older men. Conclusions In Japan, workers with precarious employment, most notably hourly and dispatched workers, had a lower rate of health check-ups compared with full-time workers in permanent positions. Am. J. Ind. Med. 55:884-892, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses questions related to the double-edged character of part-time work by looking at the Swedish situation, with its large share of female part-time work as well as a high share of involuntary part-time employment among women. The discussion relates to the changing conditions in and ongoing modernization of the public sector - an important employer for women - with a focus on care work organized by the municipalities. The issue that is addressed is the part-time regime that characterizes these jobs and the likely consequences of a policy change on contracted working hours. This change has been brought about by concerns on the need to meet the growing demand for personnel in care work but also by a generally expressed dissatisfaction among the women who are employed part-time involuntarily. The attempt by several municipalities to introduce more full-time positions is a result of a government programme (2002-2005) aiming to reduce the problem with part-time unemployment. Based on the reports from that programme, this article explores the consequences of the ongoing remodelling of the working time regime, especially concerning gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The part-time employee has traditionally occupied a marginal position in organizations. The recent increase in the numbers of part-time professionals, however, has been seen as offering potential for the status of the part-time employee to improve. Evidence to date suggests that this improvement has not taken place and that the part-time professional is also marginalized. Interestingly, research suggests that part-time professionals may not experience their subordinate positions as problematic, often believing that the drawbacks of reduced hours working are a legitimate consequence of their ‘choice’ to work part-time. Such ‘choices’ are frequently attributed to part-timers’ prioritization of non-work activities. In this article, using a Foucauldian approach to identity, we argue that choices need to be understood as both situated in time and space and constituted through discourse. Using these ideas we provide a re-reading of part-timers’ consent to their marginalization, arguing that their responses to their positions at work can also be understood as resistance to some of the dominant norms of professionalism. We set out the conditions that might be implicated in translating subjective resistance into more material actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the implications of part-time working for mothers, particularly with regards to their occupational mobility and acquisition of skills, in UK service sector organizations following the implementation of the Part-time Workers’ Directive in 2000. Through qualitative interviews with women and their managers in five hospitality workplaces, this article explores whether part-time workers are potentially the ‘losers’ in the ‘winner-takes-all’ approach to career development. Discussions focus upon the extent to which part-time workers can access career paths or, alternatively, whether part-time management positions are the reserve of highly skilled women who are able to negotiate reduced hours after obtaining a management position full time. In conclusion, this article distinguishes between two forms of working-time flexibility, which are named optimal and restrictive. The implications of these alternative types of flexibility, in terms of access to skill acquisition and occupational mobility, are then addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on data from a case study of a trade union campaign to organize part-time women workers in a large supermarket chain. The data indicate that combining paid work, work in the home and increased trade union participation means that the work of women activists and the resistance they encounter in its execution is broader than the customer/employee interface, or ‘front line’, that is the current focus in literature on service-sector work and trade unionism. The findings are used to argue that established feminist literature, in which the location and recipients of women's work are conceptualized as multiple and shifting but inter-related, still provide a useful analytical framework for service-sector work. Therefore an ‘all fronts’ approach may better describe the lives of part-time women workers and trade unionists in the sector. However it is argued that, far from simply being considered as an added burden, trade union activism was a powerful catalyst for change in the home and work lives of the working-class women in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is considerable debate in the popular press about the changing roles of men and women, labour force statistics suggest that there has been little change in the work patterns of men and women. Despite the increasing availability of part-time work, men in professional and managerial roles are not considering part-time as an option for them. Rather, there are increasing organizational pressures for men to be working long hours in the paid workforce. In this paper, men's absence from part-time work is considered from a multidisciplinary perspective. Factors operating at the individual, social and organizational levels are identified and explored in terms of their impact on men's working patterns. A model is presented that characterizes men's absence from part-time work as a result of the mutually reinforcing nature of these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a regulation framework to chart the emergence of neo-Fordism as a flexible accumulation regime and mode of social regulation. Neo-Fordism relies on old Fordist principles as well as incorporating new models of emergent post-Fordisms; old and new social relationships, in their particular combination, specify the trajectory of national variants. I argue that Fordist bargains institutionalized the terms of a compromise between labour, capital and the state. These bargains embedded a male-breadwinner gender contract compromising women’s positions and standardardizing employment contracts around the needs, interests and authority of men. A focus on compromises and contracts makes visible the differentiated gender effects of work transformation in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use event history analysis to study the effects of family-related factors on the employment behavior of U.S. and (West) German women in a dynamic life course perspective. Data from the National Survey of Families and Households and the German Socioeconomic Panel are analyzed to examine the differential determinants of entry into and exit from full-time and part-time employment during the family life course and the differences in these processes between the two countries. Marriage and childbearing continue to influence exit from and entry into paid work in both countries. Family structure plays a stronger role in women's working lives in Germany than in the U.S., and part-time work in Germany is more closely related to childbearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitudes and experiences of staff towards radiation oncologists who work part-time. A questionnaire was sent to all radiation oncologists, radiation oncology registrars and radiation therapists, and a nursing and clerical representative working in all radiation oncology departments throughout Australia and New Zealand. Of 1242 questionnaires, 446 (35.9%) were returned. Of these, 323 out of 435 respondents (74.2%) supported the concept of a radiation oncologist working part-time. The main barriers to part-time work were inadequate provision of cover, the inability to be contacted when not rostered on, and perceived reduced quality of patient care. The majority of respondents supported part-time employment in radiation oncology. However, the conclusions made from this survey are limited by the poor response rate. For a successful part-time career in radiation oncology, the following points need to be ensured: (i) an equitable pro-rata workload that encompasses both clinical and non-clinical duties; (ii) a clear and well-publicised timetable that is strictly adhered to with special emphasis on completing work prior to non-rostered days; (iii) clear mechanisms in place to deal with patient or other queries on non-rostered days; (iv) a mechanism for being contacted for urgent problems; and (v) good communication between the part-time radiation oncologist, other staff and patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]