Perspectives Vol. 136 No. 4, Part-time work: Solution or trap? - International Labour Review

INTERNATIONAL
LABOUR
REVIEW

VOLUME 136, NUMBER 4 1997/4

PERSPECTIVES

Part-time work: Solution or trap?*

Over the past 20 years there has been a trend increase in part-time relative to full-time employment, especially in many developed countries. In some cases this is the result of a political decision to promote part-time work, particularly in countries suffering from high unemployment. Indeed, there has been much public praise of its supposed merits as a means of reducing unemployment as well as of its benefits for workers and employers alike.

For workers it may offer the chance of a better balance between working life and family responsibilities, training, leisure or civic activities. It can also make it easier for workers progressively to enter the labour market or retire from employment. For employers it can permit not only greater flexibility in responding to market requirements e.g. by increasing capacity utilization or extending opening hours but also productivity gains. For policy-makers confronting high unemployment, the growth of part-time work may reduce the number of jobseekers or, at least, the number of people registered as such. In other words, it can lower politically-sensitive unemployment rates without requiring an increase in the total number of hours worked.

Of course, part-time work also has its drawbacks. Part-time workers are very often at a disadvantage in comparison with colleagues who do equivalent work full time. Typically, their hourly wages are lower; they are ineligible for certain social benefits; and their career prospects are more limited. Besides, unless working part time is voluntary, it may leave them only marginally better off than if they were unemployed. For employers, in addition to organizational difficulties, there are some fixed costs per worker e.g. recruitment, training or social security contributions subject to wage ceilings which may increase overall labour costs if the proportion of work done by part-timers is increased. Involuntary part-time work (by people who would prefer to be working full time) amounts to underemployment in macroeconomic and macrosocial terms. Beyond a certain threshold, it can weaken demand, with possible negative effects on growth and therefore on employment.

Many governments have adopted measures to facilitate part-time employment, even encouraging employers to hire part-timers in countries where unemployment is high. Such measures may target discrimination faced by part-time workers and reduce the fixed costs associated with part-time employment, in some cases even to the point of making it more attractive to employers than full-time work. But where these policies fall down is in generalizing from measures that help individual workers and employers to a national employment policy to increase the number of part-time jobs as a solution to unemployment; in a sense, this just amounts to a redistribution of work.

At the international level, two developments reflect the greater attention paid recently to the increase in part-time employment and the difficulties associated with it. The first was the adoption by the International Labour Conference in 1994 of the Part-Time Work Convention (No. 175) and Recommendation (No. 182). The second was the signing in 1997 of a framework agreement on the matter between the social partners of the European Union (EU), namely, the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe (UNICE) and the European Centre of Enterprises with Public Participation (CEEP). This agreement was upgraded into a directive following its adoption by the EU Council of Ministers, in line with the provisions of the social protocol annexed to the Maastricht Treaty.

The purpose of the following pages is to present some of the benefits and drawbacks of part-time work and describe measures taken to make the most of the former and to counteract the latter, taking care to distinguish the individual and national levels. Micro-level considerations include the various forms of discrimination to which part-time workers are liable, the legal protection available to them and the role that part-time work can play in the labour force participation of women, young people and older workers beneficial or a trap. The discussion of national policies covers trends in part-time employment and their main determinants; the employment consequences of measures to encourage part-time work; and the issue of reducing labour supply or increasing demand. But before taking up these two levels of consideration in the second and third sections, respectively it is first necessary to address the initial difficulty encountered in any discussion of part-time work: to define it. So the first section below discusses definitions and methodology, the difficulties involved in making international comparisons, and the relationship between part-time work and underemployment.

Definition and methodology

Legal definitions, statistical definitions

Convention No. 175 offers the following definition: "the term `part-time worker' means an employed person whose normal hours of work are less than those of comparable full-time workers". The reason that the concept of a "comparable" worker is mentioned is that "[t]he number of hours per week or per month that are regarded as being normal for full-time employees vary considerably according to the profession or activity concerned" (ILO, 1992, p. 5). For example, the number of hours spent by a teacher in the classroom, disregarding hours spent in preparation, fall well short of the number of hours considered normal for a manufacturing worker. As for hours of work, Convention No. 175 states that these may be calculated weekly or on average over a given period of employment. The definition contained in the European Framework Agreement is very similar to that of the Convention: "The term `part-time worker' refers to an employee whose normal hours of work, calculated on a weekly basis or on average over a period of employment of up to one year, are less than the normal hours of work of a comparable full-time worker" (European Communities, 1998, p. 13). But these are legal definitions that serve to identify a particular category of workers enjoying certain rights particularly the right not to be discriminated against in relation to workers in other categories and/or to determine whether a given worker or group of workers is covered by the legislation governing part-time work. While such definitions may be useful at the individual level, they are not helpful as a basis for measuring the economy-wide incidence of part-time work.

Statisticians have three possible ways of establishing whether a household survey respondent is a part-time worker: they can rely on the respondent's judgement and ask directly whether he or she works part time; they can ask how many hours a week the person works, setting a threshold e.g. 30 hours below which the work is classified as part time; or they can combine the first two. The results achieved by the first method are likely to come close to those that would be obtained by using the legal definition of part-time work, but they may be affected by the subjective perceptions of respondents (especially where one person responds for all members of the household). Besides, this method might not work in the absence of an established standard for "normal" hours of work. The second method takes no account of the differences between occupations or activities; a full-time teacher with 28 hours of classroom work will fall into the part-time category. Combining the two methods allows corrections to be made.

In addition, there are several possible definitions of "hours of work", as "normal", "actual" or "usual" (see box 1).

Difficulty of international comparison

The situation becomes far more complicated when one seeks to compare the incidence of part-time work internationally. The phrase, "whose normal hours of work are less than those of comparable full-time workers", which appears in the ILO Convention, is interpreted differently, according to each country's national law. Thus in France a person working up to four-fifths of normal hours of work is considered part time, whereas in Spain a part-time worker is one who works up to two-thirds of the hours specified by collective agreement or of the hours normally worked in the enterprise. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, meanwhile, a person has to work less than 30 hours a week to be considered part time (van Bastelaer, Lemaître and Marianna, 1997, p. 7).

The same applies to statistical definitions. Some countries draw the line between part-time and full-time work by reference to usual weekly hours of work: 30 hours in Finland, Canada and New Zealand, 35 in Australia, Austria, Iceland, Japan, Sweden and the United States, 36 in Hungary and Turkey, 37 in Norway. Eurostat publishes data on 14 European Union countries (excluding Sweden) and on Iceland on the basis of self-assessment by the people concerned rather than a threshold. Lastly, some countries, including Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, combine the two methods. In Spain, for example, people who say they are part time but usually work more than 35 hours a week are counted as full time; conversely, those who say they are full time but work less than 30 hours are classified as part time (van Bastelaer, Lemaître and Marianna, 1997, p. 7). These national variations in definition naturally have an effect on the measured incidence of part-time work. For instance, if Canada's 30-hour threshold were applied in Sweden, the proportion of part-time to total employment would drop from 27 to 18 per cent, which is in fact the proportion currently obtaining in Canada. In Italy, half of those working less than 30 hours a week claim to work full time, the other half claiming to work part time. If a threshold were applied, the proportion of part-time work would rise from 6 to 11 per cent (ibid., p. 6). Lastly, the 35-hour threshold applied in many countries could turn out to be equal to France's full-time working week if the bill introduced by the present Government becomes law.

The study for the OECD by van Bastelaer, Lemaître and Marianna on the definition of part-time work for the purpose of international comparison presents other notable findings:

(a) In countries where part-time work (national definitions) is common, [many] jobs of more than 30 usual hours per week are classified as part-time ... These countries tend to use a definition based on a 35 usual hours threshold.

(b) In countries where part-time work (national definitions) is relatively less common, the incidence of jobs of less than 35 usual hours per week that are classified as full-time is high. Part-time jobs are generally identified on the basis of self-assessment in these countries.

(c) There is less variability among countries in the incidence of part-time work when the latter is defined by a threshold (whether 30 or 35 usual hours) than when national definitions are used. However, the application of a uniform threshold across countries does not substantially change the relative position of countries regarding the frequency of part-time work (1997, p. 12).

Although the study suggests adopting a 30-hour threshold for defining part-time work, the rest of this "perspective" uses data based on national definitions, which offer longer time series. While this limits direct interna-tional comparison, it enables an examination of national trends which can be compared (see table 1).

Part-time work and underemployment

There is a fundamental distinction to be made between voluntary and involuntary part-time employment: whether people deliberately choose to work part time or accept reduced hours of work simply because they cannot find full-time employment. In the latter case, part-time work becomes a form of underemployment. Labour statisticians are keen to isolate this phenomenon, to define it as accurately as possible and to measure it with all possible precision, because this knowledge is indispensable for the formulation of effective employment policies. The issue is due to be examined by the sixteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians in October 1998; the international statistical standards currently in force are those adopted at their thirteenth Conference (ILO, 1988, pp. 52-53).

There are two forms of underemployment: invisible and visible. Invisible underemployment "is primarily an analytical concept reflecting a misallocation of labour resources or a fundamental imbalance as between labour and other factors of production. Characteristic symptoms might be low income, underutilization of skill, low productivity" (ibid., p. 53, para. 15 (2)). Visible underemployment is directly linked with involuntary part-time employment and affects people "involuntarily working less than the normal duration of work determined for the activity, who [are] seeking or available for additional work" (ibid., p. 53, para. 18 (1)). It also includes those partially unemployed that is, those affected by a temporary, collective reduction in their normal hours of work for economic, technical or structural reasons who are excluded from the definition of part-time worker in Convention No. 175. These various concepts can be sketched as follows:

A few observations are in order here. First, visible and invisible underemployment can overlap. When the labour market is depressed, skilled workers may accept not only unskilled but also part-time jobs. Secondly, the very notion of voluntary vs. involuntary part-time work is open to question: "Persons who report that they worked less than normal because of family responsibilities may have opted for these activities because they were unable to find more work in the first place. They may also be persons who although originally working short hours for personal reasons now desire more working hours but continue to declare the original (voluntary) reason for working short hours. Conversely, persons may report economic reasons for working short hours even if at present they are not willing to work additional hours" (ILO, 1997a, p. 13, para. 36). It should be added that some people may work part time for family reasons and be unavailable for more work and are therefore classed as "voluntary" whereas if child care were available, for example, they would prefer to work more. All these issues are being actively discussed by labour statisticians, who seek to define these various phenomena with maximum precision (see ILO, 1997a and 1997b). And their interest is not only statistical; knowing whether part-time work is voluntary or, rather, represents underemployment has an effect on appropriate economic and social policy.

Individual aspects of part-time work

"Individual aspects" refers here to everything relating to the benefits and drawbacks of part-time work for workers or employers. First one should consider the drawbacks even discrimination that may be suffered by a person who chooses to work shorter hours. Secondly, one should establish whether part-time work facilitates access to the labour market or whether it traps the worker in underemployment.

Legal protection of part-time workers against discrimination

In preparation for the International Labour Conference that adopted the Part-Time Work Convention and Recommendation, the ILO brought out a preliminary report that examines the conditions of employment of part-time workers (ILO, 1992, pp. 31-53).¹ The report also contained a questionnaire sent to member countries; their replies appeared in a later report (ILO, 1994). Together, the two documents provide an overview of part-time work and related legislation worldwide.

Part-time workers are on average paid lower hourly rates than full-time workers. Such differentiation can sometimes be observed even for equivalent work performed within the same establishment, but this is not generally the case. In fact, the differential becomes more apparent when one considers groups of workers. This is due to a number of factors: part-time workers "tend to work in sectors, and indeed in branches of sectors where the hourly rates of pay are low in comparison with the national average. They also tend to be employed in low-graded jobs and to be excluded from supervisory posts" (ILO, 1992, p. 34). Part-timers are more likely to be excluded from supplementary payments such as bonuses, holiday and sickness pay, training allowances, seniority payments, etc. A very important related question is that of the minimum number of hours of work required to qualify for certain entitlements, as in the case of redundancy pay or other benefits. Legislation already exists in this respect in some countries (see ILO, 1992, pp. 31-33), and judicial decisions have been reached on these questions; an earlier "perspective" focused on such judicial decisions taken in Europe (International Labour Review, 1994).²

The disparity in remuneration can also be attributed to the growing proportion of women and 15-25 year-olds in part-time employment, the former as a result of discriminatory practices, and the latter because of their recent arrival on the labour market. In the case of women, this can also be seen as a two-way process of cause and effect: they are paid less on average because greater numbers of them are in part-time work. Recalling that the Equal Remuneration Convention (No. 100), 1951, had been ratified by 111 member States by January 1992, the ILO pointed out in that year that: "Because of the prevalence of women in part-time employment the issue of equal pay for work of equal
value is an important factor in relation to the pay and allowances of part-time workers" (ILO, 1992, p. 35).

Part-time workers are also at a disadvantage on account of their hours of work. This may well be obvious, but premium payments for overtime are often not made until a part-time employee has worked the equivalent of normal full-time hours. Overtime can thus be used as a means of achieving flexibility by maintaining part-time workers on relatively short basic hours and requesting them to work substantial overtime during peak periods. Under some laws or collective agreements, overtime rates apply once the normal part-time working hours are exceeded, though their provisions generally specify a maximum number of overtime hours so as to avoid too great a distortion between part-time and full-time labour costs.

Certain part-timers work "on call", without any guaranteed minimum weekly or monthly number of hours (the "zero hours" system) and are thus in a particularly vulnerable situation. Apart from the fact that they cannot rely on a minimum income, they are often excluded from certain rights and benefits, entitlement to which is subject to a minimum number of hours worked, calculated on a weekly, monthly or other basis. Here, too, some countries have adopted legislative provisions to give such workers a minimum of security in respect of the hours they work (see ILO, 1992, pp. 36-37).

Thus the ILO report notes that part-time workers are frequently at a disadvantage, individually or as a group, in respect of direct or indirect remuneration, social security benefits, training (including training in occu-pational health and safety), and participation in trade union activity or staff representation. These disadvantages are compounded by a type of discrimination, referred to as invisible (as it is scarcely quantifiable), which affects their advancement and promotion prospects. Here again, there is a striking similarity to the situation of working women generally, and this is no coincidence.

Furthermore, deterioration in the employment conditions of part-time workers can lead, through a "levelling-down" process, to a deterioration in the situation of their full-time fellow workers. Convention No. 175 therefore establishes minimum standards for part-time employment, based on the two principles of proportionality and non-discrimination (see box 2). Since this is a very recent Convention, few ratification procedures have yet been completed, though the number of ratifications was sufficient for it to come into effect on 28 February 1998.

Part-time work: Not all that it seems

One of the supposed virtues of part-time work is that it facilitates the gradual entry of young persons into the labour market and enables older workers gradually to withdraw from wage employment. Another is that it makes it easier to reconcile family responsibilities with employment, with the added advantage of maintaining a link with working life and thus avoiding a total break as in the case of parental leave which can create problems as regards subsequent skills upgrading. In fact, it is within these three worker categories youth, older workers and those with family responsibilities that part-time work is most prevalent. According to a report of the European Commission on employment in Europe: "Over the Union as a whole, only around 3% of men of prime working age [24-49] who were employed were in part-time jobs in 1995. This contrasts with figures of 25% for young men aged 15 to 19 and 40% for the over 65s" (European Commission, 1996, p. 55). France's Economic and Social Council (CES) arrives at similar figures (see table 2), reporting that: "Contrary to widespread belief, the highest levels of part-time employment are not registered among women in the 25-49 age group, but among younger women and those over the age of 60. Part-time work, therefore, is not solely a stratagem for reconciling work or occupation with family responsibilities, but often corresponds to a period of gradual induction into or withdrawal from economic activity" (CES, 1997, p. 79). The CES report also states that the opposite situation obtained in the early 1980s, but that over the past 15 years part-time work has become more prevalent among young women "with the development of subsidized training courses and work experience contracts, which are generally offered on a part-time basis" (ibid., p. 79). Another hypothesis, in no respect contradictory to that proposed by the CES, may help to explain this phenomenon: the improved labour market position of relatively qualified women and especially their higher remuneration has encouraged increasing numbers of them to work full time during their prime active years provided they can afford child care and/or child-care facilities are available.

As regards the proportion of part-time work in older age groups, various early retirement schemes have been developed often in response to high unemployment or to avoid redundancies during restructuring with financial assistance from government or unemployment insurance funds. At enterprise level, however, such arrangements can have the disadvantage of causing an abrupt loss of skills and experience. For this reason, a number of countries e.g. Belgium, France, Portugal and Spain are promoting gradual retirement by offering older workers part-time work while encouraging employers to hire young persons, also on a part-time basis, so that the experienced workers can pass on their skills to the beginners.³
From the worker's point of view, part-time employment can fulfil two main functions: that of a "bridge" between employment and inactivity, and that of reconciling paid work and family responsibilities. This second function is evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of part-time workers are women (see table 3), who still assume the greater portion of family responsibilities though this is still changing. There are, of course, other factors behind the disproportionate numbers of women in part-time work: inequalities in qualifications and pay, which means that in a married couple, the less well paid of the two is the one likely to work part time, or the fact that part-time employment is particularly widespread in the services sector, where women are relatively more numerous compared to manufacturing. The question that arises, therefore, is whether part-time work is not a trap, especially for women.
One way of tackling this question would be via the theory of labour market segmentation into primary markets (i.e. stable, well paid jobs with possibilities of advancement) and secondary markets (precarious, poorly paid jobs with no prospects of promotion), and to examine whether part-time jobs predominate in the secondary markets. One study has done so in the United Kingdom (Tam, 1997). Like the above-mentioned ILO report (1992), this study demonstrates that part-time jobs are worse than full-time jobs in several respects, including skill levels, wage rates, promotion prospects and relations with management. However, the argument that part-time jobs are secondary jobs is not borne out in the light of three criteria: job security, degree of supervision and irregularity of working hours. Irregular hours of course exist but do not appear to be the general rule. As for job security, there seems to be no appreciable difference between part-timers and full-timers in respect of duration of contract or protection against dismissal. However, the boundary between the two markets divides the part-time working population, in as much as the shorter the hours worked, the worse off the part-timer will be. Especially in the case of women, part-time work thus appears to be a factor that aggravates initial handicaps, such as low skill levels, and thereby weakens the worker's position on the labour market (Tam, 1997, pp. 240-243). The study concludes that:

Part-time work experience carries cumulative disadvantages and has a negative effect on employment prospects.

Moreover, because of the low-skill nature of part-time work, it has a channelling effect on women's lifetime employment prospects. This study shows that while part-time work is not associated with job insecurity and unemployment, it constitutes a trap which lowers women's lifetime employment prospects and earnings (Tam, 1997, p. 243).

Thus, where part-time work is accompanied by adequate legal protection in accordance with the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination and provided it is freely chosen by workers who are in a relatively strong position on the labour market, it can be an excellent means of dividing one's time between economic activity, family responsibilities and other pursuits. However, where it is imposed on or endured by workers in secondary jobs, it merely increases their difficulties and compromises their employment prospects. This being the case, the next question that needs to be examined is that of the effects of growth in part-time employment and, in particular, the effects of measures designed to promote it as a means of combating unemployment.

Part-time work and the job market

As pointed out above, variations in definitions call for great caution when making international comparisons concerning part-time work. However, comparisons over time in one country do not present the same problem. There has been a notable increase in the proportion of part-time jobs in the industrialized countries over the past 20 years (see table 1). This seems to have coincided with the rise in women's labour market participation (see figures 1 and 2) and growth in service sector employment (ILO, 1992, p. 1).
Moreover, many of these countries are suffering from very high levels of unemployment. The promotion of part-time work was often seen as a means of reducing unemployment, as a form of "work-sharing" or redistribution of employment. It is indeed one of the policy options for reducing labour supply, as opposed to those aimed at increasing demand by boosting economic growth or its employment intensity. Yet the effectiveness of promoting part-time work as a means of combating unemployment depends on a number of factors: whether the causes of unemployment are structural or cyclical, the prospects for long-term growth in part-time employment, and the consequences of such growth.
The development of part-time work
The increase in the proportion of part-time employment can be expected to continue, because its main driving forces service sector expansion, women's increased labour market participation, and employers' desire for flexibility look set to persist. In fact, the service sector is proving to be the industrialized countries' main source of new jobs. As for women's participation rates, estimates and projections made by the ILO Bureau of Statistics indicate that they should continue to rise at least until 2010 (ILO, 1997c and 1986).
On closer examination of the available data, however, the development of part-time work does not seem to have followed a consistent pattern. Thus, while the OECD data for 1980 showed some relationship between part-time work and women's labour force participation (figure 1), the situation was less clear by 1995 (figure 2). Some of the former communist countries (Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland) combine a high rate of female participation with a low incidence of part-time work possibly a reflection of the employment structure under the former system coupled with the slow development of the services sector. Finland and the Netherlands were already exceptions in 1980, with two contrary configurations: a high level of female participation and little part-time work in Finland and the reverse in the Netherlands. In Mexico, where female participation rates are low, part-time work could be considered akin to underemployment. In other countries, while the relationship may be more apparent, it remains strongly subject to national income levels, cultural factors such as religion or attitudes towards women's role in society and, of course, regulatory frameworks. The above-mentioned CES study classified countries according to their ratios of part-time to total employment in 1993: under 10 per cent were Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxemburg, Finland and Austria; between 10 and 20 per cent were the United States, Canada, Germany, France and Belgium; and over 20 per cent were Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. It also observed the following developments over the past two decades:
• the increase has occurred everywhere except in Greece;
• in the countries of the first group, especially in southern Europe, the growth of part-time work has been slow in countries where its proportion was low to start with;
• regarding the countries of the second group, growth has been more rapid in France and Belgium than in Canada and the United States where it levelled off between 1983 and 1992;
• in the third group of countries, the same levelling off occurred and, above all, "countries with a high proportion of part-time workers in relation to the total number of employed (between 17 and 25 per cent) seem to have settled at a level of about 25 per cent" (CES, 1997, pp. 49-51).

However, the proportion of women in part-time employment has tended to stabilize (see table 3 and CES, 1997, pp. 52-56).
Another finding is that "part-time jobs of more than 30 usual hours [are] common precisely in those countries where the incidence of part-time jobs is high, and full-time jobs of less than 35 hours common in countries where part-time work is rare" (van Bastelaer, Lemaître and Marianna, 1997, p. 10). In other words, it would appear (logically) that demand for part-time work is lower where normal working hours are relatively short; and part-time working hours remain relatively long where it is more usual, implying convergence between the reduction of normal working hours and part-time work.
In this connection the question arises of a possible relationship between the incidence of part-time work and trade union strength. It could indeed be hypothesized that strong unions are in a position to negotiate a reduction of normal working hours, and could thus reduce demand for part-time work. However, figure 3, which gives levels of part-time work and union density in 1995, shows no obvious relation between the two. In fact, trade union strength can operate in opposite directions. On the one hand, it can discourage part-time work if unions manage to obtain a reduction in normal working hours or the establishment of satisfactory child-care facilities for working parents, or if as has long been the case in a number of countries unions quite simply oppose this form of employment, which they tend to consider precarious. On the other hand, action by trade unions can encourage part-time work if they manage to obtain guarantees on wages or social benefits for part-time workers. This is probably the case in the Scandinavian countries, where both union density and part-time employment levels are high.
These observations imply that there are limits to the apparently linear, perhaps even inexorable, progression of part-time work as countries become more affluent, as women's labour force participation increases and as the service sector expands. Indeed, in the countries where it is most widespread, part-time work seems vulnerable to cyclical downturns (1983-92) and has tended to stabilize at a ceiling of about 25 per cent (except in the Netherlands). Besides, while part of the overall growth in part-time employment can be attributed to workers' preference for such work, some of it is the result of involuntary part-time work, i.e. underemployment.

Facilitating part-time work or promoting underemployment?

The ILO report on part-time work lists the various measures introduced by member States to facilitate or encourage part-time work (see ILO, 1992). From the employers' point of view, part-time work long presented more drawbacks than advantages: it increases costs e.g. fixed recruitment and training costs per employee and social security contributions subject to wage ceilings and complicates work organization, e.g. coordination among part-time employees. But, economic change and the need for greater flexibility have also conferred advantages on part-time work when it comes to coping with extra workloads not requiring full-time workers or adjusting working and opening hours in the retail trade, for example. From the workers' point of view, the disadvantages of part-time employment have already been mentioned. Promotional measures therefore seek to overcome its disadvantages from both points of view by attenuating administrative barriers and targeting income tax issues, social security systems, unemployment benefits, job-sharing, career prospects and vocational training, as well as specific categories of workers, e.g. those with family responsibilities or older workers (for a detailed review, see ILO, 1992, pp. 54-71).

One set of promotional measures directly addresses the cost of part-time work, either generally or as a means of providing labour market access to new entrants (ILO, 1992, pp. 60-61). In general, such measures involve subsidizing part-time employment through tax relief or reduced social security contributions, as has been done in Germany, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. The problem, however, is that such measures can overcompensate for the extra costs of part-time work to the point where it becomes more attractive for employers to recruit part-timers rather than full-time employees especially since data from a number of countries suggest that the hourly productivity of part-time workers is often higher. In the United States, for example, the productivity of a half-time employee has been estimated at 64 per cent of that of a full-time worker. The figures for those working 60 and 70 per cent of normal working hours are 77 and 87 per cent, respectively (CES, 1997, p. 93). The explanations offered are that part-time employees work more intensively, with less absenteeism and job tedium, and that "part-time workers, especially when they formerly worked full time, may be expected to carry out a set of activities that normally would be carried out by a full-time worker" (ILO, 1992, p. 40).

Thus, as a result of promotional measures and higher productivity, there is a danger that involuntary part-time work will increase in countries where part-time employment is being encouraged as a means of combating unemployment. According to the CES report, this is what appears to have happened in France: "The accelerating growth of part-time employment during the first half of the 1990s is due, at least in part, to the financial incentives offered to enterprises by the public authorities since the end of 1992" (CES, 1997, p. 45). Indeed, between 1983 and 1992 France saw little change in its part-time employment levels: 1983 marked the beginning of wage restraint, and 1992 the subsidization of part-time work in response to rising unem-ployment, whereupon

the proportion of part-time employees in the private sector declaring themselves willing to work longer hours either while remaining part time or by going to full time increased from 31.4 per cent in 1992 to 38.8 per cent in 1995. The increase was even more striking among men (40.6 to 50.8 per cent) and workers under the age of 25 (44.8 to 54.5 per cent). These figures are related to the increased numbers of subsidized work experience contracts offered to jobseekers and young people, most of them on a part-time basis. In 1995, 76.5 per cent of trainees and beneficiaries of subsidized contracts were working part time (CES, 1997, p. 99).

The OECD, for its part, has studied measures of labour market slack, focusing on discouraged workers and involuntary part-time workers (OECD, 1995). With regard to the latter, it notes that outside Japan and the United States their numbers were relatively stable over the 1980s, "although they did pick up in the recent downturn and only time will tell if they decline in the subsequent recovery" (ibid., p. 43; see also table 4). The OECD study finds no clear correlation between levels of unemployment and the incidence of involuntary part-time employment, but points to a relative correlation (with some exceptions) between part-time work and other indicators of economic recession. These findings suggest there might be some substitution effect as between unemployment and part-time work, partly because of institutional arrangements like subsidized gradual retirement.

As a supply-side policy measure designed to reduce unemployment, the promotion of part-time work thus appears to come up against two constraints. The first is that growth in the proportion of part-time to total employment may be subject to natural limits. The second is the risk of increasing underemployment. While this might well be the lesser of two evils, the underlying macroeconomic assumptions of such a policy must be considered too.

Reducing the labour supply v. increasing demand

Employment policy measures like the reduction of working time or the promotion of job-sharing or part-time work more or less explicitly assume that the volume of work available is now limited by advances in labour-saving technology, hence the theory of jobless growth or even "the end of work" (Rifkin, 1995). Another underlying assumption, albeit implicit, is that work is a homogeneous "commodity" to be shared out among workers. Yet the ILO's report World Employment 1996/97 shows that the employment intensity of economic growth has not diminished but actually increased (ILO, 1996, p. 21). This would make slow economic growth the primary cause of the problem.

France is pursuing a policy of reducing normal working hours to combat unemployment, which stood at 12.3 per cent in December 1997; and the same is being envisaged in Italy (with 12.1 per cent unemployment in October
1997). France's Observatory of Economic Cycles (OFCE) has conducted a macroeconomic simulation which suggests this policy could create 500,000 jobs over five years, provided that reduced working time is accompanied by wage restraint (OFCE, 1998). Yet it now looks like western Europe's increased unemployment and recession of the early 1990s may have been caused by the steep rise in real interest rates that came with stringent monetary policies and by budgetary and wage restraint largely associated with the requirements of the European monetary union and employment policies geared to cutting labour costs all of which inhibited economic growth (see ILO, 1996, p. 82; Fitoussi, 1997a and 1997b). Indeed, any measures that might restrict domestic consumption or curb its incipient recovery of recent months seem likely to go against growth and employment. Involuntary part-time employment may well have just that effect: instead of being an exchange of wage restraint for leisure time as is the case with reduced working hours, it amounts to sharing out a given quantity of employment and income between more workers, thereby depressing their purchasing power with particularly adverse consequences for low-skill/low-income groups.

Conclusion

If it is freely chosen and protected by law, part-time employment no doubt offers workers a good way of striking a balance between the time they must spend earning a living and the time they wish to devote to other activities. It also gives employers greater flexibility in adjusting working hours to business requirements while achieving higher productivity. In this respect, the option of part-time employment seems well worth encouraging. Another reason for doing so is that workers especially women should not be forced to choose between full-time work and unemployment as the only alternatives on offer. However, those wishing to work full time should not be left facing a choice between unemployment and underemployment either. Policies designed to promote part-time work by lowering its cost below that of full-time employment are likely to have the perverse effect of increasing the proportion of involuntary part-time workers, i.e. underemployment, with adverse consequences both social especially for women and other workers already at a disadvantage on the labour market and economic, depressing demand, growth and employment.

References

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Notes
*Prepared by Patrick Bollé, French-language editor of the International Labour Review. Back to text

1. This is, of course, not the only aspect of part-time work covered in the report, which also deals with the definition, extent and characteristics of part-time work, measures to promote it and the position adopted by employers' and workers' organizations and by the ILO itself. Back to text

2. That "perspective" also considered the questions of dismissal following an employee's refusal to change hours of work, of complementary pension schemes, and of overtime rates for part-time workers. Back to text

3 On this subject see Lei Delsen and Geneviève Reday-Mulvey (eds.): Gradual retirement in the OECD countries, 1996, Aldershot, Dartmouth Publishing Co. Ltd., reviewed in the "Books" section of this issue of the Review. Back to text