WP 36 - Women's Preferences or Delineated Policies? The development or part-time work in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom

Mara Yerkes & Jelle Visser

considerable “opt out” possibilities for firms, are less conducive to making part-time into “decent
work”.

In this paper we consider the increase of part-time work and the policies surrounding this
development with a degree of scepticism. On the one hand, and under conditions of conferring to
part-time workers the same rights and pro rata earnings and benefits (sickness, unemployment,
disablement, old age pensions) as full-time workers, part-time work can be a promising alternative
for staying out of the labour force. And it can be a way to address work-family issues related to
having and raising children or caring for others, especially when the decision to work part-time is
free and reversible. Finally, part-time work can be a way to enter or leave the labour force,
combining education or retirement with paid work. In the Netherlands, since 2001 employees have
the right to request changes to their working hours. Similarly, legislation recently became effective in
Germany and the UK. While legal disputes show that in the Netherlands employees usually find the
law on their side, take up rates have been very low, possibly reflecting that aspirations or
preferences will not always be acted upon, as this may damage work relations and careers even in a
context of overall low unemployment, as is the case in the Netherlands (Visser, Wilthagen, Beltzer
and Van der Putte, 2004). Therefore, worker choice and influence over individual working hours
should be questioned. Furthermore, part-time work remains women’s work—while it is often
promoted as a way for both mothers and fathers to achieve work-family balance, gender inequality
in part-time work remains, reflecting differences in access to on the job training and career
advantages (Evans, Bertholdt and Marianna, 2001).

AIAS - UvA

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