Between Equalization and Marginalization: Women Working Part-Time in Europe and the United States of America

by Hans-Peter Blossfeld (Editor), Catherine Hakim (Editor)

Overview

This book provides the first comparative study of the long-term development of women's part-time work in Europe and the United States from 1950 onwards. The authors analyze a wealth of longitudinal and cross-sectional data on the work force, generating a powerful critique of the dominant theories that part-time work equalizes women's position vis à vis full-time workers or leaves women in part-time jobs wholly marginalized. Instead, the study asserts, women's increasing part-time employment in modern societies must be examined in the context of the sexual division of labor within the family.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198280866
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/13/1997
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

University of Bremen

London School of Economics and Political Science

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: A Comparative Perspective on Part-Time Work, Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Catherine Hakim2. A Sociological Perspective on Part-Time Work, Catherine Hakim3. Part-Time Work in Central and Eastern European Countries, Sonja Drobnic4. Full and Part-Time Employment of Women in Greece: Trends and Relationships with Life-Cycle Events, Haris Symeonidou5. Part-Time Work in Italy, Tindara Addabbo6. The Family Cycle and the Growth of Part-Time Female Employment in France: Boon or Doom?, Laurence Coutrot, Irene Fournier, Annick Kieffer and Eva Lelievre7. Part-Time Work in West-Germany, Hans-Peter Blossfeld and Götz Rohwer8. Female Labour Market Participation in the Netherlands: Developments in the Relationship between Family Cycle and Employment, Paul de Graaf and Hedwig Vermeulen9. Part-Time Work Among British Women, Brendan Burchell, Angela Dale, and Heather Joshi10. Women's Employment and Part-Time Work in Denmark, Soren Leth-Sorensen and Götz Rohwer11. Managing Work and Children: Part-Time Work and the Family Cycle of Swedish Women, Marianne Sundström12. Part-Time Work in the United States of America, Sonja Drobnic and Immo Wittig13. Women's Part-Time Employment and the Family Cycle: A Cross-National Comparison, Hans-Peter Blossfeld

Editorial Reviews

"This book...is an impressive cross-national study of the long-term development of part-time work in Europe and the United States....[It] is an important contribution to our understanding of part-time work and women's employment across countries and over time. The book contains useful statistics and analyses...and I can recommend it to anyone interested in labor markets, family research, and comparative welfare state research."—American Journal of Sociology

From the Publisher

Using longitudinal and cross-sectional data from individual countries, explores the long-term development of women's part- time work since World War II. Focuses on three contrasting tenets: women's increase participation in the labor force, regardless of its form, reduces their dependence on men and leads to greater equality between men and women on the job and in the family; the expansion of part-time work among women disadvantages and marginalizes them in the labor market and the family; and within the context of the sexual division of labor in the family, part-time jobs and other low-paid or non-career jobs, can be not only tolerated but enthusiastically appreciated by dependent wives and other second-income earners. The 13 studies have been oft revised since original presentations at a 1993 seminar in Bremen, Germany. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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