The First Part-TIME Economy in the World
Does it Work?
The current rate is still lower than in the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom or the
United States, but is now level with the rate in Germany and France, and six points ahead of
Belgium. Various developments have contributed to increased female participation,
foremost among these are the higher level of education of women, declining fertility rates,
and emancipation. Combining aggregate labour market trends (Maassen van den Brink,
1995) and Kea Tijdens’ (1997) study of staffing policies in the banking sector, we can draw
the following picture of alternating pressures of supply and demand explaining the part-time
phenomenon.
In the 1960s labour markets were very tight, unemployment for male workers fell in some
years below 1 percent and manufacturing firms started to recruit unskilled workers in
Mediterranean countries. Women’s work, for wages, was girl’s work. The overwhelming
majority of families consisted of a full-time male breadwinner and a full-time housewife.
Women tended to marry in their early twenties and the average age at which they give birth
to their first child was 23. According to the census of 1960 only 0.6% of all women with
children under the age of four had paid employment (Moree 1991: 102-3). In services and in
the public sector employment contracts terminated at the day of marriage. Tax disincentives
were considerable; earnings of spouses were added to those of her husband; in 1973 this
became optional but the view that women’s wages are supplementary was only fully
removed in 1990 with the introduction of individual fiscal treatment.
In response to tight labour markets, employers began to see married women as a possible
labour reservoir and a way to escape from high wage pressures. In banking, for instance,
they set up data-entry pools in which married women, with older children, were recruited in
half-day (five days, four hours) jobs under temporary contracts. Married women were
encouraged to stay until they had their first child, at reduced hours (five days. six hours; or
four full days). Due to longer education, each new cohort of women enters the labour
market later, has children later in life and participates in the labour market longer and in
greater proportions.
After the mid-1970s labour markets slacken again and from 1976 unemployment rates for
women are higher than for men, indicating that the traditional pattern of withdrawal from
the labour market is no longer valid in the case of women. In particular, women with higher
levels of education decide to stay in the labour market. Withdrawal becomes more costly in
terms of income and careers foregone. Unemployment reduced their chances of re-entering
and increased the chance of having an unemployed husband or partner. More women
decided to continue working whilst raising young children (Hartog and Theeuwes 1983).
The social norm with regard to work outside the home of women with young children
changes. In 1982 57 per cent of all women between 18 and 37 years believe that the care for
children under the age of six and paid employment cannot be combined; in 1993 only 26 per
cent do hold this view (CBS 1995: 39, SCP 1996). In survey after survey part-time work (or
reduced hours) is preferred more than either full-time withdrawal or full-time employment
(Plantenga 1995). This preference reflects the lack of childcare facilities and a strong caring
norm with regard to children. Most child care is still arranged informally, through family
relations, neighbours, and friends. Day-care centres for young children were, and still are, in
short supply and provision has historically been a matter for Church-related welfare
institutions targeted towards the poor (van Rijswijck-Clerkx 1981). This is a characteristic
heritage of the ‘continental Christian Democratic welfare state’ (van Kersbergen 1995) and
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