The First Part-TIME Economy in the World
Does it Work?

minimum wage in 1969 jobs of less than one-third of the normal working week had not
been covered. In 1985 employers and unions published a joint advice to make the statutory
wage applicable to all jobs.

In 1993 the government changed to law accordingly. Finally, the new Labour Time Act of
1996 includes a provision regarding the obligation of the employer to take into
consideration the care duties of the employee.

Evaluation

According to some critics structural effects, in particular the replacement of older workers
by young people, with higher skills, less rights, lower wages and more flexibility, are the
main story behind wage moderation à la hollandaise. They argue that with the massive exit
of older workers via the social security system (early retirement and disablement) during the
1980s and the creation of flexible, part-time and low paid jobs helped to circumvent the
usual ‘downward wage rigidity of those in employment’ (Kloosterman and Elfring 1990:
115).

Table 6 shows the number and share of workers at and just above the minimum wage in
1994, by type of contract, hours of work, sector, gender and age group. From that
information, the disadvantaged position of young people and flex workers (atypical
employment) is manifest. But if the assertion of Kloosterman and Elfring were true, we
should after ten years wage moderation have observed a much higher share of low paid
workers in the 25-34 age group. Two further conclusions are possible. Firstly, part-time
employment is hardly a disadvantage; according to Salverda (1997) the difference in hourly
wages between full-time and part-time workers is only 5 per cent. Secondly, low pay is
concentrated among young people, affects women more than men, and is especially found in
private services, in particular in cleaning and retail (Roorda and Vogels 1993). It is in those
two sectors that there is a contamination with other aspects of ‘bad jobs’: few employment
rights, and low qualifications. A fairly large proportion of workers improve their
employment position, but chances are poor for people without skills, and for ethnic
minorities (de Beer, 1996; Salverda, 1997). Unions hardly reach out to these groups (Braam
1994; Visser and van Rij 1999).

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