ERSTE FoundationFellowship for Social Research

Labour Market and Employment in Central and Eastern Europe

2013–2014

The social status of part-time workers in Romania and HungaryRéka Geamba!u

1""

The social status of part-time workers in Romania and Hungary

Réka Geambașu

!1."The"spread"of"working"time"flexibility"in"Europe ................................................................................ 3"

1.1"Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 3"

1.2."The"concept"of"part?time"employment........................................................................................ 5"

1.3."The"emergence"and"trends"of"part?time"employment"in"Europe.............................................. 10"

1.4."Factors"propelling"the"spread"of"part?time"employment"&"explaining"the"variations .............. 15"

Factors"contributing"to"rising"demand"for"part?time"labour......................................................... 15"

Factors"shaping"employees’"availability"for"part?time"work......................................................... 21"

1.5."Part?time"work:"a"means"of"integration"or"marginalisation?..................................................... 23"

The"influence"of"part?time"employment"on"women’s"labour"force"participation........................ 24"

Individual"level"effects"of"part?time"work..................................................................................... 29"

1.6."Summary:"international"trends"and"competing"evaluations"of"part?time"work ........................ 31"

2."Part?time"work"in"Romania"and"Hungary:"a"view"from"above.......................................................... 33"

2.1."Introduction:"research"questions"and"hypotheses .................................................................... 33"

2.2."The"evolution"of"employment"relations"in"the"post?socialist"period"in"Romania"and"Hungary 34"

Post?socialist"trends...................................................................................................................... 34"

An"overview"of"the"structure"of"the"Romanian"and"Hungarian"labour"market"in"2011 ............... 36"

2.3."Working"time"flexibility"in"Hungary"and"Romania ..................................................................... 39"

The"labour"market"status"of"part?time"employees ....................................................................... 47"

The"determinants"of"part?time"work"in"Hungary"and"Romania.................................................... 54"

2.4."Summary:"towards"a"convergence"thesis? ................................................................................ 61"

3."Social"representations"of"part?time"work"in"Hungary"and"Romania................................................. 62"

3.1."Introduction:"the"research"questions ........................................................................................ 62"

3.2."The"methodology"of"the"qualitative"study................................................................................. 64"

3.3."Representations"of"part?time"work ........................................................................................... 66"

Part?time"work"during"early"motherhood .................................................................................... 66"

Part?time"work"as"a"complementary"status.................................................................................. 72"

3.4." Re?thinking"the"voluntary"vs."involuntary"dichotomy"in"the"analysis"of"part?time"work...... 73"

3.5." Time"allocation"as"a"proxy"of"employee"commitment.......................................................... 83"

3.6." Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 86"

4." Concluding"remarks ...................................................................................................................... 87"

2""

5." References .................................................................................................................................... 89"

Appendices ........................................................................................................................................... 94"

Appendix"1 ........................................................................................................................................ 94"

Appendix"2 ........................................................................................................................................ 95"

Appendix"3 ........................................................................................................................................ 97"

Appendix"4 ........................................................................................................................................ 98"

Appendix"5 ...................................................................................................................................... 100"

Appendix"3 ...................................................................................................................................... 101"

"

3""

1.!The!spread!of!working!time!flexibility!in!Europe!

!

1.1!Introduction!

Part-time work as a particular and increasingly widespread form of atypical employment has

been regarded from a variety of perspectives and consequently assessed in so many

contradictory ways. Carrying out paid work in alternative – reduced – working-time schedules

has emerged as an increasingly popular way of gainful employment starting with women

entering the labour market in the post-war period in Western Europe. Women’s high

concentration in usually lower status part-time jobs was conducive to creating and

maintaining vertical sex segregation between men and women, perpetuating at the same time

all the disadvantages that a part-time employee accumulates during his/her working career.

Women’s influx into the labour market in Central and Eastern European socialist regimes led

to similar sex differences in working life patterns in the two regions with the notable

exception of part-time employment. Similarly to other forms of atypical work part-time was

virtually non-existent in the state controlled labour market of the socialist countries.

Working in less hours than the standard schedule, just as the opportunity to carry out

work from one’s home has not significantly grown in popularity ever since the collapse of

socialism in Central and Eastern Europe. More precisely, in spite of the scattered and not so

significant supply of (mostly female and student) part-time labour neither employers nor the

states have recognised the importance of atypical work in increasing the competitiveness of

companies or improving national level employment rates. The desirability and benefits

attributed to working part-time have been highlighted from time to time by several groups of

labour market actors and states as well as employers have been urged to facilitate and

encourage employees’ access to working reduced hours. Flexibility has been missed and

praised by most actors of the labour market and part-time employment has been regarded as

(possibly) serving many objectives.

Part-time work has been primarily aspired to by people facing transitory or long term

hardship reconciling two or more social roles and duties. The most significant social groups

showing high willingness to take up part-time work have been full-time or irregular students

seeking a source of income and possibly preliminary contacts with and experience of the

4""

world of work. A second category prone to commit to working part-time is usually that of

women engaged in caring either for children or one or more elderly members of their families.

Typically women in these cases regard themselves as primary caretakers who might be

motivated by a wide range of reasons – from the need for additional income to peers’

company – to take up work in reduced hours. Lastly, the third life stage increasing availability

for part-time work is the period of exit from the labour market or alternatively transitory or

permanent illness: in the former case work in reduced hours is meant to buffer the shock of

leaving employment permanently both in terms of the disappearing income and of

accommodating oneself to idleness. In the latter case several types of illnesses and conditions

can make it possible for people to carry out limited amount of paid work. In all ideal typical

cases enumerated so far the individually defined objective of demanding part-time

employment is securing one’s economic activity while at the same time being able to commit

to other roles. People struggling with an illness or a disability consider part-time along with

other forms of atypical employment as a crucial and indispensable condition for maintaining

one’s economic and social pursuits.

Part-time work is expected to serve the objective of social and economic integration in

the discourse of economists and social policy makers. This approach views mostly marginal

labour market groups: the economically inactive, the unemployed and among these women,

the low skilled, immigrants or members of an ethnic community, the young or people with

disability. Part-time employment along with other forms of non-standard work is defined as a

potential means of integrating in the labour market the members of the social groups

enumerated above. The state is often called for to provide special incentives for employers to

create such jobs and accommodate the needs of these ‘special’ employees. Working mothers

are viewed as a special category whose access to part-time employment should be improved.

The desirability of part-time work offered to women raising children can be seen both a

conservative and a progressive-feminist objective. In the first instance work carried out with a

reduced schedule is instrumental to securing women’s primary attachment to the private

sphere and their compliance with conservative gender roles. On the other hand, however,

there have been attempts to reconsider the role of part-time employment as an empowerment

of women through facilitating their access to paid work and consequently through

contributing to the rethinking of traditional gender division of work in the household.

The present paper examines the conditions under which part-time employment is indeed

able to fulfil the objectives described above, that is integration into the labour market, the

ability to pursue paid work while conserving traditional gender roles and empowerment.

5""

Before doing that, however, we begin the paper by defining the concept of part-time

employment and by highlighting the methodological issue raised by attempts to measure and

compare the incidence of part-time work across the world. The second section is dedicated to

describing the most significant trends of part-time employment, focusing more on Western

European labour markets and to a lesser extent on other market economies. This statistical

account will offer the possibility to sketch the profile of typical part-time employees

throughout the countries during the past decades. The next section deals with the individual

and structural level conditions that favour the development of the part-time segment,

emphasising however not only factors that encourage individual decision to take up part-time

work, but also those incentive structures that have been developed at the firm level and by the

state to encourage the spread of part-time employment. Lastly, the paper is closed by a section

which sums up the most important empirical results of research conducted so far that aim to

answer the central dilemma of part-time work: is it a means of integration or on the contrary,

it perpetuates marginalisation?

1.2.!The!concept!of!part>time!employment!

The massive spread of part-time employment in the countries of Western and Northern

Europe has been brought about by the gradual flexibilisation of the labour market starting

with 1970s (Harvey 1990, Walwei 1998). Although part-time work was formerly known and

to some extent available to women in the preceding decades as well, it is the emergence of the

post-Fordist ideology of economic organisation that increased the pace of labour market

flexibilisation. Part-time work is just one of the elements of an increasingly flexible labour

market. The new regime of flexible accumulation affected not only labour market processes,

but production and consumption, as well. The replacement of Fordism as an overarching

conception of organising production and consumption, as well as labour force allocation

mechanisms and its substitution with the system of post-Fordist flexible accumulation was

brought about by the 1973-oil crisis, but a wide range of factors urged significant changes in

economy at least one decade earlier. In terms of organising production and human capital

allocation the rigidity of the labour market – especially in the highly unionised and privileged

Fordist segment of the industrial production – was considered an insurmountable obstacle to

assure and maintain large companies’ productivity and competitiveness. As a culmination of

the gradually aggravating situation in the corporate sector caused by decreasing profitability

6""

the oil crisis made it inevitable to find solutions to raise the pace of capital’s turnover. Beyond

developing new technologies and searching for novel economic nichés costs related to the

labour force needed to be tempered (Harvey 1990).

This was accomplished on the one hand by the relocation of several of the production

lines of multinational companies to Asian and South-American countries and on the other by

dividing domestic labour markets into primary and secondary segments (sees also Tilly 1992).

In most countries – with the notable exception of the Netherlands, as we shall later see – the

emergence of part-time jobs has been strongly connected to the overall restructuring of the

labour market and as such it was conducive to lowering human capital expenses. As a result

of the segmentation of the labour market employees have been divided roughly into two

groups and as such have been endowed with radically different rights and perspectives. While

the core employees belonging to the primary internal labour market work full-time and enjoy

job protection, social security, better wages and fringe benefits as well as good promotion

possibilities, those working in the secondary, marginal labour market lack all these rights and

benefits (Harvey 1990). Of the latter the Institute of Personnel Managament in its 1986-

publication entitled Flexible Patterns of Work claims that it is formed by two groups. The first

one consists of routine white collar workers with lesser career advancement opportunities and

the second, the most peripheral group was described by the above mentioned handbook as

follows:

“[It] provides even greater numerical flexibility and includes part-timers, casuals,

fixed term contract staff, temporaries, sub-contractors and public subsidy trainees,

with even less job security than the first peripheral group.” (“Flexible Patterns of

Work” cit. by Harvey, 1990:150).

While many sociological and economic accounts of part-time employment highlight the

feminised and vulnerable character of part-time work (see for instance Meulders et al. 1996,

Oborni 2009) another corpus of the literature reveals the reasons behind the lower and

stagnating popularity of this form of atypical employment in former socialist countries. These

studies refer to part-time work not only as conducive to accumulating disadvantages for the

employee but also as a form of flexible employment with relatively high costs attached for the

employer. In fact, there is a debate as to the role of regulated labour market in preventing

companies to employ workers on a part-time schedule: legal provisions of employee

protection, but also high costs of manpower are mentioned as potential disincentives to

enlarge the part-time sector of enterprises’ labour allocation (Hárs, 2012:8).

7""

Although labour market status vulnerability, strong feminisation and concentration in low

status, usually tertiary sector jobs have been a general feature of emerging part-time work,

employees carrying out work in reduced hours have not formed an undifferentiated and

unitary social group over the years. On the contrary, the social group of part-time employees

is further divided along lines of actual hours worked, as well as the voluntary/involuntary

character of engaging in atypical work. The status of these employees may differ according to

several other criteria. Before turning to the most important categories within the part-time

segment of the Western European labour market of the past decades in the following we

summarise the complex and diverse set of definitions available across the different European

countries highlighting at the same time the central feature of part-time work.

The concept of employment, to begin with, follows in most cases the definition advanced

by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which refers to „persons who worked at least

one hour during the reference week for pay or profit, in cash or in kind, or had a job but were

absent from work for some well-specified reason (mostly vacation or sick leave) (Brown et al.

2006:7). This approach includes a variety of forms of employment besides the standard based

on full-time, long term and indefinite contracts. To differentiate between regular and part-time

employment the ILO proposed a definition of the latter to form the basis of the “Part-Time

Work Convention” adopted in 1994 in Geneva. In Article 1 this normative text states the

following:

“For the purposes of this Convention: (a) the term part-time worker means an employed person whose normal hours of work are less than those of comparable full-time workers; (b) the normal hours of work referred to in subparagraph (a) may be calculated weekly or on average over a given period of employment; (c) the term comparable full-time worker refers to a full-time worker who:

(i) has the same type of employment relationship; (ii) is engaged in the same or a similar type of work or occupation; and (iii) is employed in the same establishment or, when there is no comparable full-time worker in that establishment, in the same enterprise or, when there is no comparable full-time worker in that enterprise, in the same branch of activity,

as the part-time worker concerned; (d) full-time workers affected by partial unemployment, that is by a collective and temporary reduction in their normal hours of work for economic, technical or structural reasons, are not considered to be part-time workers”. (Part-Time Work Convention, 1994 [No.175])

Point (a) in the above definition contains and ultimately has become the most widely used

approach to part-time work including all those employees who work less than ‘standard’ full-

time workers. The definition does not use any hours-threshold to delimit part-timers from full-

8""

timers as do other conceptualisations. As point (c) specifies the only distinction between full-

time and part-time employees is the length of their working schedules, in all other respects a

part-time worker benefits of the same conditions and rights. This refers both to the content

and type of the work and the place of working activities. While there might be differences

between enterprises or economic sectors in terms of defining the conditions of work, within a

company or an economic branch all aspects of the employment status of full-timers and part-

timers are in general lines similar. However, as point (d) highlights temporary or longer

reductions of the working hours of full-time employees due to economic or other reasons

cannot be considered a case of part-time employment. Along with the ILO-concept of part-

time employment OECD uses its own definition for statistical purposes setting the threshold

differentiating between part-time and full-time at 30 hours per week.

In spite of the existence of the ILO and OECD definitions international statistical

comparative endeavours of part-time employment are seriously limited by the fact that it is

too general to be applied to all national contexts. The difficulties of finding a universally

reliable and applicable definition stem from the variety of the national contexts of the

particular labour markets. This is due to the fact that the classification of work relations does

not exclusively serve scientific goals but at the same time it ought to conform to and reflect

the administrative structure and practices of the country. Simultaneously, the variety of

conceptualisations is not limited to inter-national differences, but it is due to the fact that part-

time work bears very diverging and heterogeneous meanings for particular geographical

regions, genders, age groups, occupations or economic sectors (Hárs, 2012:28–29). Lastly,

part-time employment is very often differentiated along lines of working time amount. That

is, most empirical investigations have pointed to the fact that the meaning conveyed to both

the employee and the larger social context differs to a great deal according to the number of

hours worked in a week. Most commonly the cut-off points are at 15 and 29/30 hours per

week, respectively (Jenkins 2004). The categories emerging from this classification are

labelled as marginal (<15 hours/week), half time (15–29 hours/week) and reduced hours (over

30 hours per week) (Hárs, 2012:8–9).

The length of the daily or weekly schedule is considered relevant because as many

studies have shown it functions as a reliable proxy of the voluntary character of engaging in

part-time employment which ultimately determines whether it results in the marginalization

or the integration of the employee. Usually, as Hárs summarises previous study results, while

employees working less than 15 hours per week are difficult to situate along the employment

and non-employment dichotomy, only those who are employed for more than 30 hours per

9""

week are able to maintain or improve in the longer term their labour market integration.

Brown et al. go as far as arguing that the labour market status of the people employed for less

than 15 hours per week is so precarious that they might as well be included in the category of

the unemployed at a national level evaluation (Brown et al., 2006:2).

Distinctions between particular types of part-time employment are not however self-

serving and the classifications are not limited to serving administrative logics. Concepts of

part-time work need to be carefully defined in order to reflect the very specific labour market

positions occupied by employees both in terms of worker rights, benefits, career opportunities

and working place attachment (Hárs, 2012:28).

Additionally to the distinction between part-time and full-time employment and to the

classification of part-time employment statistical analysis raises further methodological issues

to deal with. On the one hand classification needs to deal with the dilemma of setting a clear

cut set of criteria to distinguish between part-time and full-time, while on the other hand the

researcher has to acknowledge that the moment or the period of the year bears an influence

upon statistical outcomes as seasonal or casual work may be part-time at the same time

(Delsen, 1998:59–60). As for the first issue, generally, there are three main approaches to the

registration of part-time employment. The first relies entirely on the self-perception of the

respondent and disregards the effective number of hours he/she has been working during the

reference period. The second option is built upon usual working hours with a threshold set at

30 or 35 hours per week, typically. Lastly, the third method of recording part-time

employment does not take usual, but the number of actual hours worked into account,

distinguishing between part-time and full-time along the same threshold than in the second

approach. This last method of measuring part-time work usually yields higher part-time rates,

Delsen argues (Delsen, 1998:59). Just as we mentioned above, OECD set the cut-off point at

30 hours per week and instead of relying exclusively on the self-identification of the persons

surveyed it classifies workers according to usual number hours worked.

As emphasised earlier in this section statistical classifications tend to simplify empirical

phenomena and reduce them to dichotomies just as in the case of part-time and full-time

work. Although beginning with the second wave of feminism theoretical approaches have

tried to deconstruct conceptual dualisms used beforehand to understand gendered experiences

of reality, and break with dichotomies such as subjective/objective, emotion/reason,

nature/culture or private/public (Warren and Walters, 1998:102) to be able to reflect the

heterogeneity of women’s subject positions. The full-time and part-time dualism proved more

resistant than others to theoretical rethinking, as many studies have themselves pointed

10""

toward the contrastive relations between the two types of labour statuses. Part-time jobs were

considered to be the female, covered low status positions mainly in the service sector,

whereas full-timers were to a much larger extent men employed in production and benefitting

from much advantageous condition. As useful this dichotomy has proven, in describing basic

differences in labour market positions and opportunities, it does not account for differences

within both categories that derive from a variety of motivations, economic sector and others.

The most often imputed shortcoming of the part-time/full-time dichotomy is its inability to

convey a differentiated and complex account of a variety of labour market statuses and

positions (Warren and Walters 1998).

1.3.!The!emergence!and!trends!of!part>time!employment!in!Europe!

The expansion of part-time work has commenced in the 1970s and 1980s and has

accompanied the spread of other forms of atypical employment within the larger context of

labour market flexibilisation (Smith et al., 1998: 35). Concerning the primordial reason for

the diffusion of part-time employment there are two competing sets of hypotheses to explain a

growing interest for employing people on shorter time schedules. Without attempting to offer

a detailed account of all the major factors behind the growing popularity of part-time work –

which will be covered in the next section – here we point toward the two hypothetically most

significant forces propelling the expansion of part-time employment. On the one hand since

most part-time employment has occurred in the service sector a highly plausible hypothesis

assumes that economic change and restructuring, and more precisely the gradual growth in

importance of services leads to the creation of new mostly part-time jobs. On the other hand

many authors assumed and in many cases proved that the sector effect is overridden in weight

by the changing employment practices of companies (Smith et al. 1998:39–41). Alternatively

some analysts argue that in many cases women’s rising labour market participation or the

changes occurred in the supply side of the labour market, i.e. a growing demand for a more

equilibrated share of one’s time between work and leisure has been equally important in

determining the growth of part-time rates (Hárs, 2012:7). Nevertheless, not all studies have

found evidence as to the existence of an undoubted relationship between part-time rates and

women’s labour market participation (Smith et al., 1998:36) or between the growth of part-

time employment and that of overall level of employment (Delsen, 1998:69, Walwei,

1998:106–107).

11""

Several pieces of evidence show, however, that employers’ behaviour is the most

powerful explanation of the diffusion of atypical employment in general: certain incentive

structures push firms towards raising the share of part-time workers and also enlarging other

forms of atypical employment in order to reduce personnel costs. This explains the timing of

the expansion of part-time employment: the 1970s and the 1980s, mostly as a response to the

deterioration of many European companies’ competitiveness and productivity. In spite of the

fact that throughout this period part-time rate has increased in the majority of the OECD-

countries there have been maintained significant gaps in the importance of part-time

employment in individual countries (Delsen, 1998:60).

In a study analysing the evolution of part-time employment in the 15 member states of

the European Union across the decade starting in 1983 Meulders et al. found that part-time

rates have been increasing at varying pace in most countries. However, in the respective

period countries could have been split into two categories based on the way their labour

market integrated part-time employment. In countries belonging to the first group (of which

the most representative are Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and

the United Kingdom) part-time employment has become “a structural element in the evolution

of wage relations” (Meulders et al. 1996:579). This basically meant that part-time rates have

increased irrespective of the evolution of employment and unemployment trends. Not

accidentally the countries that belong to this first category have higher part-time rates than the

European average; ultimately, high incidence of part-time employment yields on the one hand

a more accentuated polarisation of part-timers employed for rather short hours and full-timers

working above the average schedules. On the other in countries where the labour market

segment of part-timers is larger than in others part-time employment accounts for a much

more powerful marginalisation (Walwei, 1998:102).

The second category is formed by those states where part-time work has been relatively

rare for the entire period. However, it is not only low part-time rates that distinguish these

countries from the rest, but the cyclical character of its evolution. In Denmark, Spain, Finland,

Sweden, Greece, Italy and Luxembourg the share of part-timers in the total employment has

shrunk an average of 0.5–2 percentage points as a result of growing general employment

(Meulders et al. 1996:578) (see also Figure 1 and the Table in Appendix 1). In other words, in

times of economic decline a segment of full-time jobs are converted into part-time

employment as a coping strategy with high levels of personnel costs.

12""

Figure 1

The evolution of part-time rates in selected European countries with high and low rates in the period between 1983 and 2011 (%)*

* Notes: Employed population of reference: 15 and above for Greece, Portugal, Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, 16 and above for Spain and 16–74 for Norway and Iceland Source: ILO KILM data

Every large scale comparison bears the risk of overshadowing significant but more

individual level peculiarities of the cases. To some distance from each other, though, Great

Britain and the Netherlands belong to the same group of part-time rate patterns. According to

Jenkins in the 1980s in Great Britain one quarter of the employees and one third of the jobs

were part-time; the latter increased to 44 per cent by 1998, covering mainly feminised service

sector jobs (Jenkins, 2004:306). The English case is the ideal type for deregulated labour

markets, just as the United States or Australia, characterised in Esping-Andersen’s model by a

very liberal welfare system (Esping-Andersen 1990). As a rule, part-time rate tends to be

higher in countries where the average number of working hours is lower. Lower working

schedules amount to a higher share of marginal part-timers. Furthermore, as a result of

deregulation the English labour market is characterised by an accentuated polarisation of

employment with a growing gap between full-timers working longer hours than the European

average and a growing segment of precarious part-time employees working shorter hours

0"

5"

10"

15"

20"

25"

30"

35"

40"

1983"1985"1987"1989"1991"1993"1995"1997"1999"2001"2003"2005"2007"2009"2011"

Greece"

Spain"

Portugal"

Italy"

Great"Britain"

Norway"

Iceland"

Switzerland"

Netherlands"

13""

(Walwei, 1998:103). However, as the English case reflects labour market deregulation does

not necessarily result in highest part-time rates, although they yield significantly higher

propensity for atypical employment than regulated labour markets. The degree of the spread

of part-time jobs is exceeded by the Dutch case which according to many authors represents

an outlier in the European taxonomy of part-time patterns. In Visser’s interpretation the Dutch

example comes to certify that the diffusion of part-time jobs and that of the ‘one-and-a-half-

job-per-household’ model are not necessarily the outcome of a coordinated and well-

concerted action of the government, trade unions and employers, but it has been shaped by

policy responses given to grass root demands for reduced working hours. As the table in

Appendix 2 displays the Dutch part-time rate has doubled between 1983 and 2011, reaching

more than 37 from 18 per cent, and registering the highest pace of expansion in the 2000s.

Besides rates and their growth what makes the Dutch example unique with respect to patterns

of part-time employment is the worldwide lowest share of involuntary part-timers. Partly also

due to the historical lack of child care facilities married women are the social category with

the highest propensity to take up part-time work. The merit for preventing part-time

employment from becoming a route to labour market marginality and precariousness is

attributed by Visser to the intervention of the government and trade unions (Visser 2002).

Overall, during the past twenty years atypical employment first increased then declined

mildly, in Europe, but generally their level has maintained high. Looking at the past two

decades’ evolution of part-time employment Hárs ranked European countries and regions

according to the incidence of part-time employment. This form of atypical work has been

most widespread in Western Europe, followed by Northern, Southern and lastly by Eastern

European countries. For the entire period women have represented the large majority of part-

timers (see Figure 2) (Hárs, 2012:28). As Figure 2 also displays the share of women in total

part-time employment has decreased over the years from 1983, especially in Western and

Northern Europe. In the other two macro-regions, that is in Southern and Eastern Europe

women have maintained their majority status or have even increased it (see also Hárs,

2012:31).

14""

Figure 2

The evolution of the share of part-time employment and female part-time employment in total employment in the countries of the European Union between 1991 and 2001 (%)

Source: World Development Index, World Bank

The relation between the change of part-time rates and the evolution of employment and

unemployment has received special attention in several analyses due to wide social and policy

expectations towards flexible employment to improve labour force participation across

different segments of society. Data of the European labour force have shown that part-time

employment is only rarely able to reduce unemployment. The most accessible labour force

segment to employers willing to hire on a part-time basis is made up of inactive or

discouraged persons: married women with children, students, ethnic minorities or the elderly.

Moreover, as Smith et al. highlighted, voluntary part-time work is a real option only to those

who have access to additional sources of income (Smith et al. 1998:35). Focusing on the past

two decades in a European comparative perspective Hárs reached the conclusion that in spite

of the great differences between countries the rates of part-time employment generally follow

total employment rates with the exception of the countries of Central and Eastern European

states (Hárs, 2012:48).

0,00"

10,00"

20,00"

30,00"

40,00"

50,00"

60,00"

70,00"

80,00"

90,00"

Part?Zme"employment"as"a"percentage"of"total"employment"

Female"part?Zme"employment"as"a"percentage"of"total"employment"

15""

1.4.!Factors!propelling!the!spread!of!part>time!employment!&!explaining!the!variations!

The diversity and divergence of the patterns of part-time employment in Europe and outside

Europe has led researchers of the issue to be puzzled as to the main factors encouraging the

spread of this particular form of atypical work. The present chapter is dedicated to the

summary of the most significant previous studies concerning structural and individual level

incentives of part-time work. In the following account of key contexts and factors propelling

the rise of part-time work we comply with the structure of most similar analyses by dividing

the factors into two groups: first we begin by outlining those macro-social and

macroeconomic factors that create incentive structures leading to the expanding demand for

part-time work, and then we turn to particular individual level conditions and characteristics

that increase the propensity of members of several social groups to engage in part-time work.

Factors!contributing!to!rising!demand!for!part>time!labour!

Most authors agree that the emergence and rapid spread of atypical employment can hardly be

explained by one single social and economic factor and that the variety of atypical

employment patterns are backed by a series of interactions between macro and micro level

changes. In the present section we aim to separately concentrate upon each significant social

and economic force propelling the development of the part-time sector and also to reveal the

special contribution they bring to the employment structures of particular labour markets.

Economic restructuring and the growing share of the service sector

The sectorial distribution of part-time employment and the concentration of most part-time

jobs in the service sector have led researchers to assume that economic restructuring, the

diminishing of industrial production were primarily responsible for the rapid spread of part-

time employment. While the role of agriculture in employment has continued its decreasing

path between 1960 and 1981 reaching 10 per cent from 21.7 in the OECD countries, the share

of the service sector in the same period in the same states has risen from 43.0 to 56.3 per cent.

Manufacture has commenced its downward trend in this period, decreasing from 35.3 to 33.7

16""

per cent. By 1981 the service sector has grown largest in the USA, Canada, Australia and in

Europe in Sweden and the UK (Harvey, 1990:157). However, neither Smith et al. (1998:39–

41, 43–44), nor Delsen (1998:66) found reliable evidence to support this hypothesis. Delsen’s

assumption did not merely refer to singular cases but he tested whether inter-country

differences in the industrial structure were able to explain differences in the levels of the part-

time rates. The point of departure was the observation that manufacturing, mass-production

did not rely that much on part-time employment (Delsen, 1998:66). However the structural

effect was not found significant by Walwei either (1998:103).

Employer strategies of improving competitiveness

Economic restructuring and dampened competitiveness of firms alike have motivated

companies to search for means to improve productivity. Flexibility has become highly praised

in this period both as employers and employees were concerned. Among the large variety of

atypical forms of employment numerical flexibility was one of the best strategies to adjust

human capital allocation to production processes in order to increase productivity and control

production and human resource costs. Most studies concentrating upon the relative weight of

the changing industrial structure and the behaviour of firms find that the latter has contributed

to a much greater extent to the diffusion of part-time employment within and across economic

sectors and industrial groups in the 1980s (Smith et al. 1998:41). According to the ‘flexible

firm thesis’ (Jenkins, 2004:307) companies saw short-term cost saving in personnel policy as

a crucial guarantee of long-term development (Delsen, 1998:67). In this respect they have

developed a set of measures of varying labour allocation and labour hours as a response to

competitive pressures. Based on an earlier classification by Fagan (Fagan et al. 1995, quoted

by Smith et al., 1998: 45–46) the fluctuation of production systems demanding a flexible

work force is the first of the five relevant factors determining employers’ use of part-time

work. In a permanent quest for improved competitiveness managers of labour intensive

service companies sought to extend operating hours, however as labour costs made up the

largest proportion of total production expenses, extra hours were sought to be covered by

employees on shorter or flexible schedule. Part-timers have been hired not only to cover

extended opening hours, but to tackle peaks in the production dynamics. Furthermore, the

availability of an optimal amount of labour force was provided by part-timers who covered

for employees temporarily missing. Lastly, managers addressed the issue of the need to

17""

improve productivity through demanding extra effort in shorter work cycles (Fagan et al.

1995 quoted by Smith et al., 1998: 45–46).

Actors’ choices, both that of institutional and individual actors, have proven more

influential for the diffusion of flexible hiring practices (Walwei, 1998:103). As Jenkins found

in six British service companies, there have been three ideal typical cases of use of part-time

employment. Peak part-timers represented the most strategic segment of the atypical labour

force in the company and they were meant to cover booms in demand throughout the day and

the week. Core part-time employees were carrying out central duties of the organisation, and

even though they sometimes ended up working longer schedules than full-timers, the

flexibility of the former was their highest valued asset. Gender, class and age stereotypes of

flexible and malleable workers/women were pertinent in the selection of core part-time

employees. Lastly, ancillary part-time workers were the most marginal hired for unsociable

hours and experiencing the highest degree of de-skilling (Jenkins, 2004:313–325).

The role of women both in companies that rely upon numerical and temporal flexibility

strategies and among part-timers in general has been significant ever since service sector

companies embarked upon improving competitiveness through atypical employment. On the

one hand the share of women and their general level of qualification within companies’ labour

force is a good proxy for the degree those companies rely upon (feminised) part-time

employment (Delsen, 1998:67). On the other the ratio of women in the total number of

employees is tightly interlinked with general managerial conceptions of ‘gendered flexibility’

(Delsen, 1998:66). The practices of segmenting the internal labour market of a firm is deeply

embedded in “management’s gendered assumptions” that allocate different types of labour to

different categories of employees, in terms of gender, but also ethnicity, class and age

(Jenkins, 2004:308). Women’s and other vulnerable labour groups’ higher concentration in

several types of atypical employment is a significant manifestation of vertical gender

segregation. Part-time jobs have been preponderantly created in low skill, low status

occupations where the incidence of women full-timers is higher. Although the rise of part-

time employment has not been conducive to desegregation, studies show that overall the part-

time segment of the labour market has been less segregated than full-time occupations (Smith

et al. 1998:38,40).

Contextual factors: labour market regulation

18""

Most member states of the European Union foster the development of atypical

employment through creating institutional and legal frameworks to form incentive structures

for employers’ and employees’ part-time work decision (Eurofound 2007). Statutory and

collectively bargained labour market regulations create a context that can both encourage or

discourage employers’ reliance upon part-time work. Labour market deregulation, i.e. the lack

of relevant protection of atypical employees creates favourable conditions for the rise of part-

time employment. However, the most notable exception under this rule is that of the

Netherlands where labour market regulation contributed to the improvement of working

conditions and labour status of part-time employees (Visser, 2002). In the following we

summarise the impact of two types of measures upon flexibilisation strategies adopted by

employers, whether enacted by the state in a unidirectional way or bargained by trade unions.

The first set of measures refers to the legal framework meant to provide financial protection

and control of other features of working conditions to atypical employees. The second

comprises all those elements of the social policy that act as incentive structures, or on the

contrary, as discouraging factors on the side of both employers and employees to rely upon

flexible employment.

Labour laws directly impact the wages, as well as the non-wage related costs of the

labour force employment. The legal framework creates institutional differences that were

found as directly impacting outcomes of part-time employment. For instance, as Delsen

pointed to increases in non-wage labour costs contributed to the growth of part-time

employment in the European Union as managers perceived this as a means of cutting

expenses by lower hourly wages, hourly insurance contributions and fewer fringe benefits

(Delsen, 1998:69). Labour laws may regulate the working time system, including overtime,

shift patterns, as well as the use of different flexible working schedules. Besides statutory

minimum wage the level and amount of reward entrepreneurs are compelled to offer for

unsociable hours as well as the working time threshold for taxes and social contributions are

again crucial for determining companies’ human capital policies and their reliance upon

atypical work (Smith et al. 1998:45–46). Regulations concerning part-time workers prescribe

equal hourly pay or on a pro-rata basis, the ban of discrimination or the obligation to offer

full-time employment upon employee’s request (Hárs, 2012:15).

Labour market regulation includes the terms and conditions of granting social security

which ultimately creates incentives or disincentives for (part-time) employment. On the one

hand some social benefits were shown to have an impact upon people’s motivation to take up

part-time work, while on the other the provision and adequacy of childcare facilities is

19""

similarly important in shaping decisions to engage in (part-time) work (Drew, 1992:612).

Doudeijns has identified some forms of social transfers that might create “benefit

dependency” and as such act as a disincentive for taking up part-time work. Among these the

most significant are high effective marginal tax rates creating “poverty traps” and high net

replacement rates are responsible for creating “unemployment traps”. Consequently in those

countries where the disincentives to take up part-time work are high part-time rates are as a

rule lower and at the same time double earner families are more widespread (Doudeijns,

1998). Institutional differences related to child care and parental leave are also explaining

differences of part-time rates across European countries (Delsen, 1998:69, Hárs, 2012:16). As

for the most relevant actors in shaping the incidence of part-time employment besides the

state, trade unions generally reject the idea of atypical employment in order to protect male

full-time standard employees. Part-time employment has been regarded as a threat to full-time

standards (Delsen, 1998:70). The history of the spreading part-time employment in the

Netherlands is, however, an example for a change in attitudes of trade unions toward flexible

work: hostile and suspicious at the beginning, but eventually they ended up becoming a

crucial bargaining partner preventing at the same time the marginalisation of part-time work

(Visser 2002).

Public policies aiming to regulate labour relations in general focus more on standard

employees, as a rule. The most important legal instruments to set the norms of appropriate

standard employment relations are collective contracts, bargained with the participation of

trade unions. However, the status of atypical employees is in most cases regulated by national

and international directives (such as the ILO Convention, for example).

Contextual factors: the structure of the labour force

The rise of part-time rates in OECD-countries in general and in some labour markets in

particular is often considered to be consequential to or at least accompanying the general

expansion of female employment (Drew, 1992:610). According to Drew the relation between

supply and demand of female labour, the existence and degree of labour shortage and the

alternative solutions to tackle it are just as crucial to determining the level of part-time rates as

the degree of gender segregation of the labour market (Drew, 1992:610). However, research

results concerning the relationship between indicators of female employment and the

incidence of flexible employment have been rather contradictory. On the one hand the

20""

empirical data presented by Smith et al. infirm the impact of women’s presence on the labour

market upon the rate of growth of part-time rates (Smith, 1998:36). Similarly, Walwei

presented previous research that failed to provide any evidence for the role of the gender

composition of the labour force in explaining the spread of part-time employment (Walwei,

1998:105). Apart from the rather special Dutch case where the ‘latecomers’ advantage’ effect

has shaped the success of part-time employment, Hárs also refers to previous studies

according to which half of the rise of part-time rates was determined by the increase of

women’s entrance to the labour market (Hárs, 2012:7). In the Netherlands women’s

widespread propensity for part-time work has been largely due to the special situation of

formerly quasi-universal inactivity of married women who have immersed into the labour

market in the 1980s choosing part-time over full-time (Visser, 2002).

The cultural and normative context

Lastly, although international comparative endeavours tend to focus upon institutional

determinants of varying part-time rates, cultural and historical features play a significant role

in shaping public attitudes towards work in general and atypical employment in particular.

This idea has directed Pfau-Effinger’s attention to gender culture and gender arrangements as

the set of values and beliefs shaping ideas of gender relations that bear an impact upon

women’s roles in society and thus on their propensity for (flexible) work. Gender

arrangements comprise four dimensions: social spheres, social values attached to spheres,

dependencies and the responsibility for caring relations. Based on the variability of these four

dimensions Pfau-Effinger identified four ideal typical models of gender arrangements in

Western Europe: (1) the family economic gender model, (2) the male breadwinner/female

carer model, (3) the dual breadwinner/state carer model and (4) the dual breadwinner/dual

carer model. Pfau-Effinger argues that the relationship has been dialectical between part-time

employment and gender arrangements: while the latter can provide incentives or on the

contrary, discourage women’s availability for part-time employment, paid work in general

and flexible labour in particular impact conceptions of women’s role in a society (Pfau-

Effinger, 1998:179–181).

Marriage bars constitute an important element of the dominant system of gender values

and norms that characterise a society: the uplift of the prohibition of taking up paid work after

a women’s marriage or its contingency upon the husband’s approval was in itself a significant

milestone of the dissolution of private patriarchy, but it was also conducive to improving

21""

women’s further access to paid work (Powell, 1999:x, or for the Dutch example see Visser

2002).

As for the regional and inter-county differences in the prevalence of atypical employment

Hárs acknowledged the relevance of regional traditions of both cultural and institutional, as

well as the historical paths of developing institutions and hiring practices (Hárs, 2012:10).

The effect of norms and cultural values upon the “dismantling of the male breadwinner norm”

(Delsen, 1998:65), originated in many cases from the secularization of society and the

increasing influence of feminism (Visser 2002), even though methodologically more difficult

to capture played an important role in creating the conditions under which women entered the

labour market.

Factors!shaping!employees’!availability!for!part>time!work!

Several analysts claim that while the role of structural and institutional factors cannot be

denied in propelling part-time employment, the central motivation of the majority of the

employees taking up part-time work hasn’t been the lack of alternatives but their special

needs in terms of combining work and leisure (Hárs, 2012:7, Delsen, 1998:72). The following

section gives an overview of the most significant micro level factors that increase the

likelihood of engaging in part-time work among the members of particular social and

demographic groups.

Gender, marital status and age

The spread of flexible forms of employment has impacted women’s patterns of work to a

much larger extent than men’s. The feminisation of the labour market has meant both a

growing share of women in the labour force and the increase of the prevalence of forms of

employment traditionally associated with women, among which flexible labour relations

(Standing 1999). The growing proportion of women in the part-time segment of the labour

market, i.e. ‘gendered flexibility’ (Delsen, 1998:66) has been explained both by the supply of

the female labour force and by the demand on the part of employers.

The most radical shift in labour market participation has been experienced by married

women starting with the mid-20th century. Beyond the changed value system the financial

22""

need to provide an additional source of income in the family, declining fertility, women’s

rising level of education and also to a certain extent the development of childcare institutional

networks have all contributed to the weakening of the link between family status and work

and thus enhancing women’s (part-time) labour force participation (Delsen, 1998:63, Smith et

al. 1998:35, Hárs, 2012:7). However for most of this period women have not considered paid

work as a means of challenging their second income earner status in the family, neither as

conducive to rethinking their primary role in the household. Moreover, as Hakim phrased it,

women’s conception of their own roles as housekeepers and secondary earners inspired the

theory of ‘grateful slaves’ (Hakim 1993). While the salience of marital status in employment

decisions in general has gradually declined over the past decades, the composition of the

household, and more precisely the division of labour in the private sphere, as well as the

presence of (young) children influence not only labour decisions, but they impact the amount

of time dedicated to paid work (Eurofound, 2007:6)

The rather significant divergence in individual country-specific patterns of flexible

employment is almost exclusively due to differences in women’s involvement in part-time

work. While this form of paid work is less important to men, the patterns of its prevalence

across groups of male employees are much more universal than in the case of women. Men

are less prone to take up (or to have taken up) part-time work and moreover, the two sexes’

involvement in flexible schedule employment has different age patterns. While in women’s

case the likelihood of engaging in part-time work is more uniformly distributed across age

groups, the fewer cases of male part-time employment follow a U-shape, being concentrated

in the younger and older age groups, that is, marking the entry to and the exit from labour

market (Delsen, 1998:62). As Hárs put it, the propensity to part-time labour is highly

contingent upon personal working careers (Hárs, 2012:7). Early career part-timers are most

likely to define atypical employment as a strategy of gradual labour market integration,

whereas flexible working time around retirement is meant to attenuate the ‘pension shock’

(Delsen, 1998:64). Nevertheless, as Delsen summarized previous research results concerning

the European labour market, male and female part-time rates have showed signs of a similar

increase and also have embarked upon a converging trend (Delsen, 1998:60–61).

Labour market status

The level of education, occupation, as well as the economic sector is equally important in

shaping access or vulnerability to part-time employment. Put differently, while employees

23""

belonging to certain social and economic groups are more likely to take up part-time work,

their status is also an indicator of the position they occupy as involuntary or voluntary part-

time employees. Generally it is considered commonplace that part-time employment

opportunities are generally taken up by previously inactive people who have an additional

income either through a family member or in the form of social benefit. However, most

workers performing a part-time job in the highly sex-segregated service sector (Smith et al.,

1998:35) in the lower occupational levels (such as catering, cleaning and other forms of

support work) where additionally the proportion of women full-timers is above the average

the probability of a large group (of women) relative to the total labour force being hired on a

part-time basis is high (Smith et al., 1998:38). As mentioned before, the capital intensive

sectors of manufacturing do not rely as heavily upon part-time employment as does the

service sector (Delsen, 1998:66). Nevertheless we stress here again that as much as a

characteristic of the service sector part-time employment may be, not the expansion of

services as such, but the diffusion of flexible hiring practices across different types of

companies aiming to enhance competitiveness is the decisive factor explaining the spread of

part-time work.

1.5.!Part>time!work:!a!means!of!integration!or!marginalisation?!

The supporters of flexible employment in general and that of part-time work in particular,

social policymakers, economists or employers alike, emphasise the role of part-time work as

providing a transition from inactivity or unemployment to a sustainable integration to the

labour market as future full-time employees. Additionally, as it was formulated in del Boca’s

paper the lack of part-time work in a society is often being seen as one of the potential reasons

behind extremely low fertility rates (del Boca, 2002). However, the ‘bridge thesis’ has not

received significant empirical support over the years. On the contrary, transition rates from

part-time to full-time especially in women’s case have been rather low both in European and

American labour markets. Part-time work has been often praised for granting an opportunity

to the otherwise marginally or non-integrated categories to gain access to paid work, while

being able to reconcile wage labour with domestic caring duties or education. The present

sub-chapter is dedicated to summarising the most pertinent research results tackling the issue

of integrating vs. marginalising potential of part-time work. Following the structure of the

24""

previous sub-chapter the present section commences with macro-social accounts of the impact

of part-time work upon women’s employment and it is followed by individual level analyses

focusing on the role of shorter schedule work in the employees’ careers and subsequent

employment opportunities. This structure is, however, not a mere self-serving copy of the

previous section, but it reflects the duality of issues and dilemmas revolving around part-time

work. First, it analyses the conditions under which flexible schedule work can enhance female

employment and second, it focuses on the potential of part-time labour to facilitate the

reconciliation of the “incompatible demands of work and motherhood” (Webber and

Williams, 2008:15) or care work in general.

The!influence!of!part>time!employment!on!women’s!labour!force!participation!

Many of the authors concentrating on the employment outcomes of part-time work have

advanced a distinction between different types of part-timers (e.g. Tilly, 1992, Webber and

Williams, 2008). Differentiating between particular groups of part-time employees is crucial

to understanding the contingency of employment outcomes of part-time work upon the

positions atypical employees occupy within the organisation. The majority of the part-time

work typologies are built upon the assumption that “[…] part-time jobs are good or bad for

the same reasons that full-time jobs are. There is nothing inherent in part-time jobs that

dictates that they must have low productivity and compensation” (Tilly, 1992:339).

Nevertheless, since part-time jobs are more likely to occur in the secondary labour market

responsible for a significant part of labour market vulnerability the often pessimistic approach

to this form of ‘contingent’ work is substantiated. Scientific, public and social policy

approaches to part-time work are shaped by the duality of alarm scenarios and optimistic

expectations. On the one hand analysts are speaking of “new subclass of workers” “living on

half rations” and bearing the long lasting consequences of a vulnerable labour market

position. On the other hand there are analyses that emphasise empirical evidence of higher

status and transitory part-time workers benefitting from the same advantages as their full-time

counterparts (Tilly, 1992:330–331).

Part-time work as a means of providing labour market integration

25""

In his most widely known account of the dualism of part-time employment Charles Tilly

defines two ideal types of part-timers, labelling them ‘secondary’ and ‘retention’ part-time

employees, and offering a very similar definition to that of involuntary and voluntary part-

time work. However, not only Tilly (1992), but Webber and Williams (2008), Jenkins (2004),

and Visser (2002), too have identified certain conditions under which part-time work can

enhance employment. In Tilly’s model the key differentiating element of the two types resides

in the position they occupy in the segmented labour market. Contrary to secondary part-time

employees retention part-time workers are hired to retain or attract highly skilled, highly

productive employees. In almost all cases retention part-time employment occurs in the

primary labour market and it is a transitory flexible arrangement negotiated on an individual

basis to provide employees with the possibility to accommodate work and domestic

responsibilities. The most important motivation on employers’ part is to benefit from the firm-

specific skills and knowledge of the employees in a period of extra demands of caring duties

or studies by granting them full benefits and pay, training possibilities and positions of

responsibility. The most typical retention part-time employees are women at early

motherhood period. While high turnover is one of the central features of marginal atypical

employment, negotiating flexibility for a limited period is a means for the employer to avoid

turnover. By clearly offering an opportunity to reconcile motherhood (or other domestic

duties) with paid work retention part-time employment contributes to the improvement of

opportunities of otherwise inactive employees. The single most notable disadvantage

retention employees face compared to their full-time counterparts is that although they are not

concentrated at the bottom of the organisational hierarchy as the bulk of the part-timers,

promotion prospects are contingent upon switching (back) to full-time employment (Tilly,

1992:333–336).

For working mothers part-time work is considered a means of “adaptation to

contradictory norms of paid work and motherhood” (Webber and Williams, 2008:16). Within

the framework of her three-element typology consisting of ‘peak’, ‘core’ and ‘ancillary’ part-

time employment, Jenkins points to partial resemblance between her account of ‘peak’ part-

timers with Tilly’s conception of retention workers. That is, the defining feature of both types

is that it enhances employment opportunities while not completely closing routes of

advancement to the primary full-time segment of the labour market. Jenkins labelled as peak

part-time employees those workers whose flexible schedule covered surges in workloads and

demand. The need to reduce labour costs was translated into an attempt to prevent the

management to allow for full-time workers spending overtime at their jobs. Increased opening

26""

hours, as well as changes in production were covered with part-time employees who

represented lower labour costs. Nevertheless, empirical evidence points to the fact that the

negotiation of the schedules of peak workers often took into account domestic needs of the

employees, and moreover in many companies part-time workers represented the basic

recruiting pool of full-timers (Jenkins, 2004:315–316).

Of course, the most widely known and discussed example of the integrating practices and

consequences of part-time employment is that of the Dutch labour market where in spite of

the persistence of some comparative disadvantages of part-time over full-time, the former

does not amount to comparable precariousness as in other countries across Europe or the

world. According to Visser’s analysis formerly inactive married and child raising women

were integrated into the labour market due to the availability of part-time employment.

However, in contrast to the general assumption of highly regulated labour markets preventing

the spread of atypical employment the Dutch case shows that as a response to the powerful

pressure of the supply of part-time labour force regulations bargained with the participation of

the state, trade unions and employers can play a significant role in preventing part-time labour

from complete marginalisation (Visser, 2002).

The contribution of part-time labour to perpetuating labour market marginalisation

Even in the sociological accounts quoted in the above section incidences of

marginalisation are stressed more powerfully than conditions under which part-time work can

act as a means of securing fully fledged labour market participation. In fact, Jenkins’ peak

part-time employee type conveys an example of employment relation in which labour market

disadvantages outweigh its integrative functions. Summing up the results of the most relevant

empirical studies one can conclude that the instances and mechanisms of accumulating

disadvantages exceed its benefices. The present section deals with the negative consequences

of part-time employment on the macro-social level, focusing upon the labour market positions

and future career advancement scenarios this type of employment generates.

Taking into consideration that in most societies the largest group of part-time employees

is that of married or cohabitating women with young children, literature often labels the

career pattern emerging out of part-time employment as the ‘mommy track’ (Webber and

Williams, 2008:16). Due to the career penalties associated with flexible schedule employment

in contrast to social policy expectations there are only few instances of transition from part-

27""

time to full-time work (Delsen, 1998:65). This turns part-time work from a bridge into a trap:

in the case of professional women their relegation into lower status jobs means a series of

damages of individual competitiveness: the confinement of the part-time employee into low

status jobs that lack any sort of responsibility, leadership and advancement prospects is

conducive to becoming blocked in this status (Webber and Williams, 2008:16). However, not

only professional, but low skilled part-time employees pay a high price for employment, as

well. Tilly’s ‘secondary’ part-time worker type accounts for what is classically considered

‘involuntary’ part-time employee. The most significant professional and career threats these

workers face, exactly due to the secondary labour market segment they are integrated into, are

related to all domains of the employment relation. In opposition to retention or voluntary part-

time workers the hiring of secondary employees is not primarily motivated by the career

needs of the employees, but on the contrary instead of negotiating the terms and conditions

the details of the flexible employment are exclusively set by the employer who conceives of

labour force flexibility as a means of reducing personnel costs. In spite of the documented

existence of part-time employment in the primary sector with the partial exception of the

Netherlands, especially in countries where part-time rates are high the spread of this form of

atypical employment is driven by demand rather than the supply of labour force. As a

consequence the conditions of flexibility are set by the employers. The part-time segment of

the labour market is characterised by a high turnover rate, lower hourly wages and

disadvantages in rewards and fringe benefits (or lack of, altogether). Part-time employees face

de-skilling, denied access to on-the-job training (see also Hárs, 2012:9). These types of jobs

usually occur either at the entry level or at the dead-end of the organisational hierarchy,

offering thus no perspectives of career advancement. Job segregation goes beyond gender

segregation: part-time employees are in many cases cut off from the rest of the employees, or

isolated both geographically and temporally (Tilly, 1992:333–336).

Jenkins’ typology of peak, ancillary and core part-time employees reflects three typical

uses of part-time work motivated by economic restructuring and the attempt to enhance

competitiveness. Although according to the empirical evidence collected by Jenkins some

instances of peak employment bear partial resemblance with Tilly’s retention part-time work

is no less conducive to precarious labour market positions than the rest of part-time

employment forms. As all strategies of increasing numerical flexibility within the labour force

of a company peak part-time workers are hired as an attempt to rationalise the allocation of

workforce across phases of production. The schedule of peak part-time workers covers the

fluctuations in demand at a much lower cost than relying on full-time employees. If part-time

28""

employees represent the majority of the workforce in a company, they are considered by

Jenkins core part-time employees: their activity constitutes the core profile of the company

and although in some cases their schedule ends up longer than that of standard full-timers,

their flexibility and the adjacent lower costs represent an important asset for improving

competitiveness. Of the threesome typology, however, ancillary part-time employees are the

most marginal and vulnerable as their physical and temporal separation, as well as their

confinement to unsociable forms of work deprives them from all resources necessary to

escape under subordination (Jenkins, 2004).

The feminisation of part-time employment is reflective of general power relations in the

labour market, but at the same time they are very much rooted in sex-typing mechanisms of

flexibility. The characteristics of both the content of work and that of the workers follow

generally shared assumptions of gender and also class, age and ethnicity. On the one hand

most part-time employment has been created in the service sector and it comprises jobs

related to caring, support, customer relations and others. This type of work has been heavily

gendered and seen as exclusively fit for women. Even in cases in which there have been no

previous gendered definitions of particular work contents, the flexibilisation practice entails a

reconsideration of ‘gender-specific’ competencies (Jenkins, 2004:326). Flexibility itself has

amounted to become ‘feminine’ in the corporate discourse as it is claimed to serve the

interests of the more malleable but hard working young women and the attempts to reconcile

work and domestic duties among middle age women (Jenkins, 2004:323). These flexibility

discourses, however, intertwined with the normative regulations of ‘proper’ and ‘genuine’

female labour force are all integral parts of the perpetuation of women’s subordinated

positions and the recreation of the overall economic gender stratification (Webber and

Williams, 2008:17).

Due to the labour market vulnerability, the lack of social and job security associated with

part-time employment Brown et al. have argued in a paper focusing on methodological issues

related to the concept of employment and unemployment that the contingent employment

relations emerging from part-time work should lead to its reclassification as a form of

unemployment (Brown et al., 2006:2). The labour market disadvantages inherent to most

instances of part-time employment located in the secondary economy are not limited to the

actual employment status (and as such consisting of losses in job rights, pay, quality and

career prospects), but as Ginn and Arber pointed to, they amount to future penalties of

pensions income, especially in the public system of pensions (Ginn and Arber, 1998).

29""

Lastly, in our section dedicated to the factors that contribute to the persistence of part-

time employees’ marginal position we close our presentation by highlighting obstacles that

prevent certain employers from increasing the companies’ reliance upon flexible employment.

Especially in countries with low fertility levels generally accompanied by low female

participation rates part-time employment for women with children is regarded as a potentially

ideal solution for improving women’s labour market activity through a better reconciliation of

paid and unpaid duties. In these countries, such as the Mediterranean states or the Central and

Eastern European societies most employers are reluctant in spite of scattered state incentives

to increase the share of part-time employment in their labour force allocation. As Brown et al.

(2006) put it the high level of labour market regulation is a notable obstacle in the rise of part-

time employment due to the relatively high headcount personnel costs. Moreover, the

incompatibility of part-time work with the normative neoliberal conceptions of work prevents

not only employers but especially professional employers, too, from embarking on flexible

work. As Oborni showed contemporary conceptions of the ideal worker are the norm,

therefore part-time employees are regarded (and self-regarded) as ‘half-committed’ ‘less

reliable workers’ (Oborni, 2009).

Individual!level!effects!of!part>time!work!

Although the evaluation of part-time labour regularly concentrates on the structural and

macro-economic employment outcomes, several analysts suggested its role in reshaping

individual power relations and positions within both the labour market and the household.

The transformative potential of part-time work

Previous studies have supplied contradictory results as to the micro-level impact of part-time

work upon work relations and the sexual division of work within the household. The present

section focuses on presenting previous research that has been carried out concerning the

influence of part-time work on social conceptions of work and full-time work and particular

and it also provides empirical evidence for the hypothesis according to which part-time work

contributes to otherwise inactive women’s (economic) empowerment, not only by their access

to paid work, but also through a more equalitarian redefinition of household duties.

30""

Oborni (2009) and Petrovici (2010) give a thorough description of the neoliberal

conception of work, however the two approaches indicate a contradictory relationship

between full-time and part-time work. On the one hand Oborni argues based on her empirical

work carried out in a Hungarian company that the way today’s corporate culture defines the

ideal worker is in contradiction with the role of a part-time employee. The commitment to

work is seen as weakened in the case of voluntary part-time workers whose motivation and

reliability is considered as directly proportional with the time spent working (Oborni, 2009).

However, as also Petrovici highlights the appraisal of flexibility does not entail a preference

for a shorter schedule, but a blurred boundary between work and personal life and

consequently a quasi-permanent availability to work. According to Petrovici the neoliberal

conceptions of work and that of the ‘deserving’ employee have made their ways into the

public imaginary of post-socialist societies. Their constitutive elements are partly inspired by

the Foucaldian concept of governmentality. Discipline, that is “self-mastery, self-regulation

and self-control” (Petrovici, 2010:27) are all necessary for governing and are the

indispensable fundaments for the obedience of the employee. The success of employees’

compliance is due to the internalisation of the flexibility and governmentality norms

associated with the neoliberal work ethics (Petrovici 2010). Nevertheless, from a different

perspective Webber and Williams quoted empirical studies that argued that especially highly

skilled professional women may positively challenge through their work practices the

expectations towards “unfettered work commitments” (Webber and Williams, 2008:17).

The effect of part-time work has not only been addressed in relation with work ethics, but

as Rubery put it, several analysts have considered flexible employment in general a potential

threat to the labour standards traditionally associated with (male) standard full-time work.

Regular labour relations together with their most widespread features – decent pay and fringe

benefits, offering social security for times of work incapability, job security, protection by the

outcomes of collective bargaining, regulations of the work schedule, as well as occasionally

career advancement prospects – are the result of long lasting collective worker action and

valued as such. However, for most cases, especially secondary part-time employment has

conveyed a set of new practices that emerge out of the deregulation of the secondary labour

market relations. Taking into consideration that the incorporation of weaker groups into a

system has regularly led in history to a renegotiation of the initial rules, Rubery concludes that

the spread of part-time employment may indeed question in the future the privileged position

of full-time employees (Rubery 1998).

31""

Our last concern with the role played by part-time employment in the lives of individuals

focuses upon its capacity to lead to a renegotiation of sexual division of labour in the

household. The basic assumption is that if employment replaces full-time motherhood and

economic inactivity it acts as an empowerment and a gain in economic independence that

ultimately changes power relations and bargaining positions within the household. However,

most quantitative time use analyses infirm the positive and equalising effect of women’s paid

work in general and that of part-time work in particular. Moreover, the latter is considered an

important means of reinforcing traditional gender roles. In a qualitative research carried out

with couples Webber and Williams identified the conditions under which the decision to take

up part-time work can enhance the distribution of household tasks. If the transition is made

from inactivity to part-time work, partners are more likely to get more involved in carrying

out household duties than in cases in which part-time job replaces full-time standard

employment. Similarly the locus of work, as well as the schedule patterns seems to be

influential for the outcomes of labour division. When the woman’s part-time job is carried out

from the home which is traditionally her domain, her full responsibility of the household tasks

are not being questioned. And lastly, the alternating schedule patterns of the husband and the

wife may as well contribute to enhancing the transformative potential of part-time

employment (Webber and Williams 2008).

1.6.!Summary:!international!trends!and!competing!evaluations!of!part>time!work!

The present chapter focused so far on the more particular form of part-time employment,

expanding first on the definition of the concept, and then followed by the revealing of

European trends of (female) part-time work. It dealt with the structural and individual level

factors propelling the spread of part-time work, closing the chapter with a summary of the

most significant theories that tackle the impact of part-time employment upon macro-

economic processes and individual lives.

The section dedicated to the co-existence of several definitions of part-time work is

indispensable both for understanding the emergence of the phenomenon and of its regulation,

and also the methodological and administrative dilemmas accompanying statistical

measurement. Unlike standard employment that is generally normatively regulated at

different levels (at national levels through collective contracts and in companies as a result of

32""

collective bargaining processes) for most of their existence and spread atypical employment

forms have only been addressed by international conventions. Nevertheless, the very

diverging national practices of statistical registration of part-time employment represent a

significant obstacle to carrying out reliable statistical comparisons. Although thanks to the

existence of international laws both the ILO and the OECD have developed own definitions

of part-time work (usually setting a weekly threshold of 30 or 35 hours) national contexts

convey specific conceptions of flexible time work. This is most often due to the different

structure of each county’s administrative system.

The virtual impossibility of using one reliable common definition is not however the

most important reason behind the lack of a well-defined international typology of part-time

work. Together with other forms of atypical employment it has emerged out of the

flexibilisation urge that characterised the post-Fordist movements of the 1970s and the 1980s.

Typically, with the well-known exception of the Netherlands, highly regulated labour markets

fail to create incentive structures for the spread of part-time employment. Attempts to

describe the international patterns of the rise of flexible employment have revealed two major

types of accommodating atypical employment in the structure of the labour market. In the

Mediterranean and in most Scandinavian countries the improvement of the economic output

generated a decrease in part-time employment, while in more liberal states such as Great

Britain, Austria, Germany, France, the Netherlands atypical work has become a structural

element of the wage relations, rising even in periods of slower economic decrease.

In former socialist countries atypical employment has proved less popular over the last

two decades. Since several analyses have shown that the drastic spread of part-time jobs is

more likely in countries with less regulated labour markets and where corporate demand for

flexibility is more accentuated it was suggested that both relatively tight labour market

regulations and enterprises’ lack of interest in numerical flexibility have hindered its spread.

Although economic restructuring and the development of the service sector have been

generally assumed to be the central propelling forces behind the rise of part-time employment

many studies have demonstrated that it is rather the behaviour of economic actors –

entrepreneurs and employees – that can impact the increase of part-time rates.

The central issue raised by part-time work as a form of flexible atypical employment is

its potential to generate rising employment by providing an opportunity for paid work to

members of marginal labour market groups. Although there are empirical data that document

the conditions under which part-time employment is a means of integration, most studies have

infirmed the long lasting beneficial effect of atypical work on employment data. Additionally

33""

several studies have looked into the influence part-time work had on individual life strategies,

the sexual division of household work, showing that except for a few typical cases the

meaning attached to part-time work tends to permanentise traditional power relations.

2.!Part>time!work!in!Romania!and!Hungary:!a!view!from!above!

2.1.!Introduction:!research!questions!and!hypotheses!

Following the first chapter dedicated to understanding the world wide emergence and spread

of flexible employment, as well as to the setting up of the conceptual and theoretical

framework used in the present research the present chapter narrows the focus to two Central

and Eastern European countries selected as case studies: Romania and Hungary. Our central

objective is to explore the basic characteristics of the two labour markets and to situate

atypical employment – and within it, part-time work – within its structure. The chapter is

made up of two main parts. The first one deals with the presentation of the temporal evolution

of employment relations in the two countries, focusing on the similarities and differences

between the two. As the agricultural sector has been for the past two decades and still is a

major component of Romanian employment much of the analysis within the chapter is

focalised on exploring its internal structure.

However the part receiving the most emphasis within the second chapter is the one

dedicated to explore signs and features of flexibilisation in the two labour markets. Eastern

European countries are well known for their reluctance to incorporate most forms of atypical

employment (Eurofound 2007). The general lack of non-standard employment which is also

translated as a reluctance to flexibilise employment relations is the primary departure point of

our study. However, the Hungarian economy exhibits quite a high rate of temporary

employment, whereas in Romania, especially the agrarian sector is heavily relying both on

self-employment and family work. Nevertheless, the focus of our research, part-time

employment is indeed rare compared to European averages, albeit somewhat higher in

Romania, than in Hungary.

The second chapter of our paper relies upon statistical data provided by data collected

and made available by the Labour Force Survey programme of EUROSTAT. Both the

34""

synchronic and the diachronic approaches towards the issues under study are based on the

anonymised Microdata provided by EUROSTAT comprising all surveys conducted in

European countries (within and outside the European Union) starting with its inception in

19831. As the statistical analysis defined both descriptive and explanatory objectives, we built

our study on research questions and hypotheses alike. These were the following:

1. The description of the temporal evolution of the two labour markets was organised

around key economic indicators as: employment, unemployment and the labour market status

of the young.

2. The second aim of our analysis was to reveal the major characteristics of atypical

employment, focusing on the labour market conditions under which several of its forms

occur. Beyond part-time employment we focused on self-employment, family work,

temporary work and homeworking.

3. In the next step we set out to build the social, demographic and professional profile of

Romanian and Hungarian part-time workers. The investigation was guided by the hypothesis

according to which the social characteristics of the population involved in part-time

employment is radically different from the European patterns in terms of age, gender,

occupation, level of education.

4. Lastly, our study culminates in a multivariate analysis modelling the factors that shape

the occurrence of part-time employment in the two countries. As a departure point we set out

a hypothesis saying that due to the wide gap existing between Western and Eastern patterns of

labour market flexibility none of the explaining variables contributing to the spread of part-

time employment in Western Europe will be significant in Romania and Hungary.

2.2.!The!evolution!of!employment!relations!in!the!post>socialist!period!in!Romania!and!Hungary!

Post>socialist!trends!

One of the most dramatic transformations experienced by the Central and Eastern European

societies was the all-encompassing change of employment relations. Formerly characterised

by virtual full employment and a quasi-lack of unemployment (Molnar, 1999:16), post-

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""1 Contract no. LFS/2012/46

35""

socialist labour markets have borne the mark of the collapse of the socialist common market

and the consequential economic restructuring. De-industrialisation, however, has not been the

only process and factor shaping people’s access to work: the transition toward market

economy, market liberalisation, changed demographic behaviour, internal and international

migration has contributed to changing patterns of employment.

Employment rates have reacted differently to economic transformations in Hungary and

Romania. First of all, although GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity has been

higher in Hungary than in Romania, even doubling the latter for a short period (see table in

Appendix 3) employment has been higher in Romania than in Hungary for the entire period.

While this seems contradictory it must be kept in mind that the Romanian agricultural sector

is to a large extent responsible for the Romanian-Hungarian employment gap. In 1997 for

example, more than 40 per cent of the employed worked in agriculture in Romania. In both

countries the GDP fell in the first years after the collapse of communism, managing to reach

the 1989-level by 1995 in both countries. The economic decline lasted two years longer in

Romania than in Hungary; however this was not reflected in the differences and trends of

employment rates of the two countries. On the contrary, while the first decade after the

regime change was characterised by a slow increase of the Romanian employment rate until

1997, in Hungary it has shrunk in the same period. The trends of evolution were inversed in

the Romanian labour market in 1997 when a period of decline started and lasted until 2005.

After 2005 labour participation rates have been stagnating and then fluctuating around 50 per

cent. In Hungary the first decade of decline was followed by a moderate growth in the first

half of the 2000s, finally revolving around 45 – 45.5 per cent in the period after 2007.

One of the key features of the Romanian labour market – one that on the one hand

differentiates it from Hungary and contributes greatly to the higher employment rates – is its

heavy reliance on agriculture. In spite of the socialist project of industrialisation (Turnock

1970) a large segment of the Romanian employment was based on agricultural activities. In

the period between 1996 and 2012 the share of agriculture in the total volume of Hungarian

employment decreased from 8 to 5 per cent, while the same shrinking trend in Romania meant

a decrease of less than 10 percentage points from 35 to 26 per cent. In parallel, the growth and

the relative importance of the service sectors with its 60–65 per cent of employment has

maintained much higher in Hungary than is Romania where it has risen from 31 to 44 per cent

in the same period.

36""

An!overview!of!the!structure!of!the!Romanian!and!Hungarian!labour!market!in!2011!

As most former socialist and Mediterranean countries Romania and Hungary are both

situated below the EU-average with respect to labour force participation (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Total, female and male employment rates in the countries of the European Union in 2011 (%)

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

By the end of the second decade of the post-socialist period the Hungarian-Romanian

employment rate gap has narrowed down to less than 3 percentage points with a somewhat

more substantial difference between the two countries’ male employment rates. Every second

Hungarian and Romanian woman aged 15–64 had access to paid work in 2013, while the ratio

0,0" 50,0" 100,0" 150,0" 200,0" 250,0"

European"Union"Belgium"Bulgaria"

Czech"Republic"Denmark"Germany"Estonia"Ireland"Greece"Spain"France"Italy"

Cyprus"Latvia"

Lithuania"Luxembourg"

Hungary"Malta"

Netherlands"Austria"Poland"

Portugal"Romania"Slovenia"Slovakia"Finland"Sweden"

United"Kingdom"

64,2"61,8"58,8"66,5"72,6"72,8"67,1"58,8"51,3"55,4"63,9"56,8"64,6"63,1"62,2"65,8"57,2"59,0"75,1"72,5"

59,7"61,8"59,5"64,1"59,7"69,4"73,8"70,1"

69,8"66,9"

61,3"74,6"75,2"77,6"

69,7"62,7"

60,6"60,2"

68,0"66,5"

70,4"64,6"62,5"72,5"

62,5"73,3"

79,7"77,8"

66,3"64,9"66,5"67,4"

66,7"70,5"75,6"75,2"

58,6"56,8"

56,3"58,2"

70,0"68,0"

64,7"55,1"

41,9"50,6"

60,0"47,1"

59,4"61,7"61,9"

59,0"52,1"44,2"

70,4"67,3"

53,1"58,7"52,6"

60,5"52,7"

68,2"71,8"

65,1"

Total"

Men"

Women"

37""

was 6.5 and 6 out of ten, respectively for men. Lower Hungarian employment rates do not

necessarily mean higher inactivity rates. On the contrary, in Hungary unemployment rates

were higher just like for the entire period. Unlike the Romanian pattern, unemployment

affected women to the same degree as men. In Romania female unemployment rates have

been lower than men’s for both post-1989 decades, but this did not translate into wider access

to economic resources, but the cost of lower unemployment rates was higher level economic

inactivity.

Table 1

Key labour force indicators in Romania and Hungary, 2011 (%)

Romania Hungary EMPLOYMENT Total employment rate (15–64) 58.5 55.8

Male employment rate (15–64) 65.0 61.2 Female employment rate (15–64) 52.0 50.6

Employment rate age group 15–24, total 23.8 18.3 Employment rate age group 15–24, men 27.0 19.9 Employment rate age group 15–24, women 20.4 16.6

UNEMPLOYMENT Total unemployment rate (15–64) 7.7 11.0

Male unemployment rate (15–64) 8.2 11.0 Female unemployment rate (15–64) 7.1 11.0

Unemployment rate age group 15–24, total 23.7 26.1 Unemployment rate age group 15–24, men 23.7 27.3 Unemployment rate age group 15–24, women 23.9 24.6

The relative labour market status of the youngest working age groups (15–24) in Hungary

and Romania is contradictory. On the one hand statistical evidence included in Table 1

suggests that the Romanian young are much more integrated in the labour market:

employment rates are higher and unemployment is lower among the young in Romania than

in Hungary. Nevertheless, if we look at the structure by economic sector of the total and youth

employment we find that in Romania young people aged 15–24 are to a higher degree

employed in agriculture than the 15–64 population (25.5 vs. 38.2 per cent). The reorientation

towards agriculture is more accentuated among young men. The same phenomenon cannot be

perceived in Hungary: here the sectorial structure of the total and young employment is rather

similar with a somewhat more powerful reliance of the young on manufacturing.

The slightly better labour market position of the Romanian younger generations

compared to their Hungarian counterparts is, as we have seen, largely due to a reorientation to

38""

agriculture. Overall, in neither society have the opportunities of the young significantly

improved. Quite on the contrary: while in Hungary 16 per cent of the unemployed are below

25 years, the 15–24 age groups make up the largest category in the total unemployed

population of Romania (with a share of 29 per cent). The situation is further aggravated in

Romania by the fact that in opposition to the Hungarian labour market neither professional

and vocational schools (in men’s case), nor general secondary level education (in women’s

case) seem to efficiently protect against unemployment. In Hungary, people with primary

level and vocational school education (or less) are the most exposed to unemployment.

Without any attempt to suggest a possible causal relationship we can notice that in the

context of rather different labour market patterns the Romanian and Hungarian economy has

accommodated labour market flexibility in very different ways. It may be emphasised from

the very beginning that in both societies full-time standard and permanent contract based

employment is the norm. Several forms of atypical employment have occurred in particular

segments of the Romanian and Hungarian labour market, but it is questionable to what extent

these transformations contributed to the flexibilisation of employment relations on the one

hand and to a more comprehensive employment on the other.

Overall, Hungary seems to have made more steps towards labour market flexibility, in

spite of the fact that in Romania part-time employment rates are higher than in Hungary. In

fact most forms of non-standard employment in Romania occur in the agricultural sector

where it is most likely reflecting the coping strategies of subsistence agricultural producers. If

we exclude the agricultural sector from our analysis we find that most major forms of atypical

employment – self-employment with and without employees, homeworking, part-time work

and temporary contracts – are more widespread in Hungary than Romania. The single

exception is family work which is virtually unknown in Hungary, making up less than 1 per

cent of the total employment. Nevertheless, in Romania due to the large dimension of

agricultural sector part-time employment, self-employment and family work make up a higher

share of the total employment than in Hungary. Self-employment is more widespread among

men in both societies, while family work, largely overlapping with part-time employment is

common among Romanian women working in agriculture. At the opposite end of the social

structure high status (mostly secondary and tertiary educated) Hungarian employees – almost

one tenth of the total employed labour force – has gained the privilege of working from home.

However, contrary to expectations this is not an employment solution designated for women,

let alone mothers of young children, but rather available to men. Finally, a last feature of

flexible labour market is the relatively high incidence of temporary contracts in Hungary

39""

where it affects 8–9 per cent of total employment, in majority men. The vulnerability of the

labour market status of temporary workers is reflected by the fact that more than half of

temporary employees work on contracts shorter than 3 months, while only 3 per cent being

hired on a contract longer than one year.

2.3.!Working!time!flexibility!in!Hungary!and!Romania!

In 2011 in Hungary men and women worked in their primary jobs approximately the same

amount of 36 hours per week. In Romania, on the contrary, the general trend observed

throughout Europe can be identified, that is on average a somewhat shorter schedule for

women than for men (32.8 vs. 34 hours per week) (Eurofound 2007). Both labour markets

privilege the standard 40-hours working weeks which cover nearly 84 per cent of the working

population in Hungary and 77 per cent in Romania. Overall, in Romania part-time rates were

higher for both sexes than in Hungary. In the former one out of ten employees or self-

employees worked in a shorter working time arrangement as opposed to only 6.8 per cent in

Hungary. Contrary to the previous years in 2011 part-time was slightly more common among

women than men in Romania. In Hungary, although significantly less popular than in Western

European countries the gender pattern applied: the share of part-timers was nearly double for

women than for men (4.7 vs. 9.2 per cent).

Most authors attribute the relative lack of popularity of part-time employment in former

socialist countries primarily to its virtual inexistence during the socialist period. Furthermore,

it is assumed that besides the lack of traditions of atypical employment the high level of

labour market regulation prevents entrepreneurs from relying excessively on atypical work

(Hárs 2012). Third, even more pressingly than in Western European countries the general low

wage levels prevent most employees from considering part-time work (Oborni 2009,

Eurofound 2007).

A large majority of the employees taking up part-time work in Romania and Hungary are

not doing so by choice, rather as a response to job shortage. Almost half of Romanian and

more than one third of Hungarian part-time employees were compelled to settle for a shorter

schedule job instead of full-time work due to the lack of such work opportunities. In both

cases ‘other reasons’ are also significant in determining employees’ options, they are

especially dominant in the case of agricultural part-time workers. Taking only industrial and

40""

service sector employment into consideration involuntary part-time employment becomes the

primary form of working time flexibility in Romania, while all other sorts of motivations

seem marginal. In Hungary people living with an illness or a disability are on the one hand

limited to take up a job with reduced schedule, but compared to Romania they are much likely

to integrate in the labour market through part-time employment schemes. Additionally, the

Hungarian situation differs from Romania in the fact that part-time employment is in one out

of ten cases a means for women to combine work with caring responsibilities. The higher

share of Romanian involuntary part-time employees outside agriculture than in Hungary

limits at least partly former theories according to which the higher the part-time rates in a

given society the higher the shares of involuntary part-time employees (Visser, 2002:31).

Nevertheless, both Hungarian and Romanian data support Hárs’s observation according to

which involuntary part-time employment affects men to a greater extent (Hárs 2012).

Table 2

Motivations for taking up part-time work in Romania and Hungary (2011) (population aged 15 and over) (%) Romania Romania – non-agrarian

population Hungary

Men Women Total Men Women

Total Men Women

Total

Person is undergoing school education or training

1.6 1.7 1.7 1.9 6.5 3.3 4.1 4.3 4.2

Of own illness or disability 3.7 4.2 4.0 2.8 2.2 2.6 18.4 16.7 17.3 Looking after children or incapacitated adults

0.4 4.2 2.3 0.0 8.7 2.6 1.0 9.9 6.5

Other family or personal reasons

2.3 8.4 5.3 1.9 4.3 2.6 1.0 3.7 2.7

Person could not find a full-time job

56.7 34.3 45.6 77.4 58.7 71.7 40.8 34.6 36.9

Of other reasons 35.3 47.2 41.1 16.0 19.6 17.1 34.7 30.9 32.3 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey All differences are significant on min. p<0.05 level

The extent to which part-time work can be considered voluntary or involuntary may be

also judged by the share of those who claimed that they wished to carry out a job entailing

longer working hours than their present workplace. Survey data do not provide additional

information as to the ‘realism’ with which respondents assessed their chances to renegotiate

present opportunity structures to engage in longer working hours. In Hungary the share of

those who wish to work longer hours coincides with the ratio of ‘involuntary’ part-time

workers, making up less than one third of this labour market segment. In Romania, however,

41""

only one third and half of the part-timers, respectively (with and without the agricultural

considered) expressed their desires to work full time. In all cases men seem to be the least

content with the working time arrangements under which they activate, a result that coincides

with those formulated by Hárs (2012:108). Around 60–70 per cent of the self-admittedly

involuntary workers would either choose another, possibly full-time job or would desire for

the same job to provide them longer working hours. Two more details need further attention:

first, around 10–20 per cent of the respondents who sustained that part-time work was a

solution to reconcile studies or caring responsibilities with paid work claimed that if

opportunities had been offered, they would have chosen longer working hours. Second,

although the category of ‘other reasons’ while still significant is largely unknown, however,

the small ratio of those who would switch to a full-time job transforms it rather into a

voluntary category.

The degree of satisfaction with one’s labour market position is detectable from the

respondents’ availability to change the current status. Those who expressed their wish to work

longer hours were also asked to name the preferred way of accomplishing that. In Hungary

almost half of part-time employees wishing to increase their working time ranked their

attachment to their actual job higher than their needs to improve their labour market status. In

contrast, in Romania 57 per cent would accept any job that offers longer schedules. In both

countries men proved to be least satisfied with their present part-time status, and thus more

available for any alternative solution. However, the lack of satisfaction translates into

concrete action only for a small minority of part-time workers: 17.5 per cent of Romanian

part-timers working either in industry or in services, compared to only 5.4 per cent of

Hungarians were actively searching for a job by the time of the survey.

As already mentioned earlier, higher Romanian part-time rates are somewhat misleading

if the sectorial structure of part-time work is not being taken into account. While agriculture

accounts for only one fifth of Romanian full-time employment, its share of part-time work

exceeds 80 per cent, being even higher (88 per cent) for women. Hungary on the other hand

follows more closely the European pattern of the higher concentration of part-time

employment in the gradually expanding service sector, especially among women (Smith et al.,

1998:38) (Figure 4). The branches of economic activity in which part-time employment was

more widespread in 2011 were more diversified in Hungary, but at the same time they were

mostly concentrated in the service sector: tourism, wholesale and retail trade, scientific

research, administrative and support services, as well as public administration and defence.

Although the Labour Force Survey does not include any questions regarding the ownership

42""

structures of the company, we may assume that on the one hand foreign owned firms have

made their contribution to the moderate expansion of part-time employment in the service

sector, while on the other in the last three branches state institutions are major employers, too.

In Romania beyond agriculture part-time employment is present only in construction and very

scattered in trade. Just to demonstrate the very different nature and use of temporal flexibility

in the two countries let us look at the two classical fields of economic activity where

traditionally part-time employment is relied upon. While in Hungary the share of part-timers

in trade and tourism is 7.8 and 12.1 per cent, respectively, the same ratios in Romania are 2.6

and 1.7 per cent.

Figure 4

The sectorial structure of full-time and part-time employment in Romania and Hungary, by gender (population aged 15 and over) (%)

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

The occupational structure reflects the concentration of part-time employment in the

service sector, as well as the country-specificities described above. What is common in the

two countries is the high incidence of shorter working time arrangements in elementary

occupations (one third in Romania and nearly one quarter in Hungary). The second and third

largest groups of Hungarian part-time employees comprise service and sales workers, as well

0%" 10%" 20%" 30%" 40%" 50%" 60%" 70%" 80%" 90%" 100%"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Wom

en"

Men

"Total"

Wom

en"

Men

"Total"

RO"

HU"

19,6"

88,1"

20"

74,5"

19,8"

81,1"

2,6"

2,5"

6,6"

8,2"

4,8"

4,7"

23,4"

1,3"

39,4"

13,9"

32,3"

7,8"

20,3"

15"

40,7"

26,8"

31,6"

19,5"

57"

10,6"

40,6"

11,6"

47,9"

11,1"

77,1"

82,5"

52,6"

64,9"

63,6"

75,9"

Agriculture" Industry" Services"

43""

as clerical support employees (22 and 9 per cent, respectively). Not only in part-time work,

but in full-time employment in general is agriculture rather marginal (Kovách 2012). In

Romania not sales employees, but skilled agricultural workers form the largest group of part-

time employees (58.2 per cent). Excluding agriculture from the analysis of the occupational

structure of Romanian part-time employment elementary occupations and craft remain the

two most significant professional categories in which employers rely on reduced schedule

arrangements. As the table in Appendix 4 shows there are no significant gender differences in

the occupational structure of part-time work in Hungary where both for men and women part-

time jobs are preponderantly created in elementary occupations and service and sales jobs. In

Romania on the other hand while men hired on a part-time basis typically either work as

craftsmen or in elementary occupations, in women’s case the share of part-time employees

among elementary occupations and technicians exceeds the share of full-time workers.

The incidence of part-time employment has no specific regional character in neither of

the two countries. In Hungary the share of part-time employees slightly exceeds that of full-

time workers in three regions: South-Transdanubian (“Dél-Dunántúl”), North-Great Plain

(“Észak-Alföld”) and South-Great Plain (“Dél-Alföld”). In Romania regions of accentuated

rural character host the majority of part-time employment: North-East (“Nord-Est”), South-

East (“Sud-Est”), South-Muntenia (“Sud-Muntenia”), while more developed urban regions

lack this form of atypical employment almost completely.

The age structure does not point toward an extensive use of part-time employment as a

means of tackling the contradictory norms of commitment to paid work and private sphere

caring duties. Neither in Romania, nor in Hungary is for example part-time work more

widespread among women in reproductive age. In Hungary approximately 10 per cent of

women working in part-time arrangements claimed that their main reason was reconciling

work with caring responsibilities. Nevertheless, the cumulated share of the age groups 30–49

in the total male and female part-time employment is only 8 percentage points higher for

women than for men which possibly points to the fact that caring duties towards children and

older dependants lead a small segment of women to take up part-time work. With the

agricultural sector included in Romania part-time employment is uniformly spread across age

groups, affecting older workers especially in the agriculture. In the industrial and service

sector in Romania part-time employment is concentrated in the 20–44 age groups, much more

than in comparable sectors in Hungary (Figure 5).

44""

Figure 5

The age structure of part-time employment in Hungary and Romania* (2011) (population aged 15 and over) (%)

* Notes: with the agricultural sector included Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

On the other hand there is partial resemblance with the European trends of concentrating

part-time work in the younger and older age groups (Eurofound 2007). Romanian part-time

employees and more specifically Romanian women participate in part-time employment in

higher rates in the younger and older age groups. In Hungary the share of part-time workers is

significantly higher in the older age groups above 65 years than full-time employment. In a

different analysis Bukodi found that shorter schedule work was usually limited to low-skilled

and older women (Bukodi, 2005:34). Young people participate in higher rates in this form of

atypical work, as well.

As most forms of atypical work part-time employment is expected to improve the access

to work of marginal labour market groups. On the other hand, in countries with high part-time

rates the majority of part-time employees are low skilled. Although in several other aspects

the Hungarian labour market bears many more of the marks of internationalisation and

flexibilisation in the field of the educational structure of part-time employment there is no

significant difference. In both societies employees with vocational and primary level or less

0,0%"

10,0%"

20,0%"

30,0%"

40,0%"

50,0%"

60,0%"

Romanian"men" Romanian"women" Hungarian"men" Hungarian"women"

15?24" 25?34" 35?44" 45?54" 55?64" 65+"

45""

education are overrepresented in part-time employment compared to their share in the total

working population. However, while for instance Romanian men with tertiary education are

almost missing from the group of part-time workers, in Hungary the distribution of part-

timers across educational categories is much more uniform, although favouring the low

skilled (see table in Appendix 5).

Another indicator of the status of part-time employment is the length of the weekly

working schedule. According to Jenkins there are major internal differences between groups

of part-time workers in terms of working hours. Weekly working schedules below 15 hours

are characteristic of marginal part-time employment, while people working between 15 and

29 hours are regarded as ‘half-timers’. Those taking up work of more than 30 hours per week

are considered ‘reduced hours’ employees who usually benefit from the best working

conditions, pay and fringe benefit of all part-time groups. It is also commonplace that in

countries with the highest part-time rates the largest groups are that of the marginal workers

hired on rather short working time arrangements (Jenkins 2004).

Hungarian and Romanian part-time employment are both dominated by marginality in

terms of working schedule, as in both countries over 90 per cent of those engaging in part-

time work are situated below the 30-hours threshold (Table 3). Moreover, their majority (over

63 per cent in both societies) work less than 20 hours per week. While generally ‘reduced

hours’ are rather rare in both systems Romanian men (working outside agriculture) and

Hungarian women tend to have longer working hour-jobs, making up a higher proportion of

the employees situated over the 30-hour threshold. The slightly higher share of women than

men in Hungary who work between 31 and 39 hours per week points to the already mentioned

emerging pattern of women adapting their labour schedules to private life duties. Also

approximately one tenth of the Romanian part-time employees worked 40 hours or more per

week in the reference period in 2011 whom we decided to exclude from the analysis as

contradictory cases.

46""

Table 3

Working time distribution of employees, by gender in Romania and Hungary, 2011 (population aged 15 and over) (%) Romania Romania – non-agrarian

population Hungary

Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total

1-10 hours 1,1 0,8 0,9 3,2 3,7 3,4 6,3 4,8 5,3

11-20 hours 45,3 61,3 54,3 48,4 74,1 60,3 61,3 57,1 58,6

21-30 hours 46,3 34,7 39,7 38,7 22,2 31,0 26,3 30,6 29,1

31-35 hours 6,3 2,4 4,1 9,7 0,0 5,2 5,0 6,1 5,7

36-37 hours 1,1 0,8 0,9 0,0 0,0 0,0 1,3 1,4 1,3

38-39 hours 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey All differences are significant on min. p<0.05 level

Part-time employment is associated in both countries with small and medium enterprises

in terms of the number of employees. Almost half of the part-time employees were working in

companies or institutions employing less than 10 persons, exceeding by 20–30 percentage

points the share of small enterprises in full-time employment. While in Hungary the single

type of firm relying on part-time employment is the smallest, functioning with less than 10

workers, in Romania larger companies (11–19 persons) are important as well in this respect.

47""

Figure 6

The structure of full-time and part-time employment by the employers’ size in Romania and Hungary, 2011 (population aged 15 and over) (%)

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey All differences are significant on min. p<0.05 level

The!labour!market!status!of!part>time!employees!

European strategies that urge further flexibilisation of the labour market assume that atypical

employment predominates over standard forms of work in the integration of marginal groups

into the labour market, making transition to and from labour market more smooth (Plantenga

and Remery, 2010). Indeed, according to the 2011 data of the Labour Force Survey one of the

most important reasons behind looking for another job among part-time workers is the

transitory character of the actual working place. Among men, this reason accounted for more

than half of the cases. On the other hand, labour market analysts emphasise that while part-

time employment offers additional chance to work it does so by concentrating employees into

low skilled and marginal segments and occupations, bearing several marks of vulnerability.

The present section is dedicated to investigating to what extent part-time employment in

Romania and Hungary fulfils its integrative roles, and in what ways, if at all it contributes to

accentuating labour market vulnerability.

0%" 10%" 20%" 30%" 40%" 50%" 60%" 70%" 80%" 90%" 100%"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Total"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Total"

Romania"witho

ut"

agriculture"

Hun

gary"

12,6"

45,1"

12,9"

28,4"

43,1"

29,4"

15,9"

19,6"

15,9"

14,1"

12,6"

14"

15,9"

13,7"

15,9"

15,9"

14,6"

15,8"

43,4"

9,8"

43,1"

31,7"

18"

30,7"

12,1"

11,8"

12,1"

10"

11,7"

10,1"

"1"?"10"persons" 11"?"19"persons"" 20?49" 50+" Do"not"know"but"more"than"10"persons"

48""

20 per cent in Romania and 25 in Hungary of those who were currently working as part-

time employees had had a different labour market status one year before. The vast majority in

both countries was unemployed, in much higher proportions than full-time employees.

Around 3–4 per cent were students and – especially the women – were fulfilling domestic

tasks. The share of those part-timers who were unemployed beforehand was the largest among

men.

The principal, though not the single dimension of the status adjacent to given labour

market categories is the associated income level. However, anonimised Labour Force Survey

data do not allow for an in-depth analysis and for the formulation of far-reaching conclusions

for several reasons: first, income data are aggregated in deciles which create categories that

overshadow internal differences. Second, as the database only provides monthly values we

cannot comply with the methodological norm of using hourly pay data for full-time and part-

time income comparison. Third, the distribution of part-time and full-time employees across

income deciles is not statistically significant which prevents us from building sophisticated

conclusions upon them. Nevertheless, Hungarian data show that the wage level of part-time

workers is significantly lower than that of full-timers, beyond the pro-rata differences.

As data included in Figure 7 show most part-time workers (75 per cent) are concentrated

in the first income decile, whereas the distribution of full-time employees is much more

equilibrated and uniform. Since decile categories do not typically allow for the calculation of

wage gaps, we rely on descriptive statistics in order to illustrate the comparatively lower and

more vulnerable status of Hungarian part-time employees against their counterparts. The part-

time/full-time differences are usually lower in professional categories where part-time

employment is used: service and sales, and elementary occupations. Similarly, the smaller the

size of the employer the lower the decile part-time employees belong to. Lastly it is worth

emphasising that the most poorly-paid part-time employees in Hungary belong to the groups

of involuntary and the disabled workers.

Romanian data, as we said earlier are not suitable for formulating methodologically

reliable conclusions. However, comparing the significantly lower status of Hungarian part-

time employees (as opposed to their full-time counterparts) on the one hand with the lack of

any significant difference between part-timers’ and full-timers’ income level in Romania this

can form the basis of a hypothesis to be tested by future research. According to this the lack

of notable financial difference between part-time and full-time employment in Romania is an

important counter-incentive for employers to create flexible and atypical jobs. This is

especially relevant, given that the demand side of the labour market was found in many

49""

studies as crucial in determining the spread of non-standard employment forms (Ruivo et al.,

1998:209). Future studies of the evolution of part-time employment in Central and Eastern

European states should focus on the perceived incentives, and opportunity structures

motivating employers’ decision to rely on atypical work.

Figure 7

The distribution of part-time and full-time employees across income decile groups in the population aged 15 and above, Hungary, 2011 (%)

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

A second aspect of the assessment of the labour market status of part-time employees

compared to full-timers is the degree of overlap between different forms of non-standard

employment. In the following pages we concentrate upon the occurrence of temporary jobs,

homeworking, self-employment, family work and unsociable working hours among

Romanian part-time employees.

Generally over the past years the share of employees of total employment has grown all

over Europe. According to Ágnes Hárs self-employment is more characteristic to men who

are less motivated by the attempt to avoid unemployment, and rather see it as a means of

taking advantage of multiple opportunities. Nevertheless, self-employment in agriculture, as

well as to a certain extent female entrepreneurship is more likely to be involuntary and as

0"

10"

20"

30"

40"

50"

60"

70"

80"

1" 2" 3" 4" 5" 6" 7" 8" 9" 10"

Men"Full?Zme"

Men"Part?Zme"

Women"Full?Zme"

Women"Part?Zme"

50""

such a response to the lack of other employment possibilities. In Hungary the lower educated

are overrepresented among individual entrepreneurs, while forming joint ventures is more

widespread among the highly qualified (Hárs, 2012:56).

Overall, self-employment with and without employees is slightly more widespread in

Hungary than in Romania, accounting for 11 vs. 8 per cent of the total employment. In both

countries entrepreneurship has a definite male character, however, only in Romania is self-

employment associated with part-time employment. While the share of the self-employed is

as low as 8 per cent in the total employment, their ratio reaches nearly 68 per cent among

part-time workers in the population aged 15 and over working either in industry or in the

service sector. The overlap between these two forms of atypical employment is not

specifically characteristic to agriculture, but the chance of someone having both statuses rises

in men’s cases to over 80 per cent. In Romania the association of self-employment with part-

time work is the indicator of marginal labour market position, because, as opposed to

Hungary mostly primary or vocational school graduates are concentrated in this category. The

share of the persons with 8 primary classes or less in the self-employed part-time group is

more than double than among part-timers working as employees.

While in Hungary the majority of part-time workers have the status of a regular

employee, in Romania part-timers’ vulnerability is highly gendered: while among men it is

associated with self-employment women’s – especially those working in agriculture – status

of family worker signals a rather marginal position. More than 65 per cent of the women

taking up part-time work within their families’ farms have graduated primary school the most

(see Table 4).

51""

Table 4

Full-time and part-time employees by professional status and gender in the population aged 15 and above, Romania and Hungary, 2011 (%)

Romania Romania – non-agrarian population Hungary

Full-time

Part-time Total Full-

time Part-time Total Full-

time Part-time Total

Men

Self-employed with or without employee

20.7 71.8 25.6 8.7 82.2 10.9 14.7 16.3 14.8

Employee 74.0 3.9 67.3 91.2 14 88.9 85.1 82.7 84.9 Family worker 5.2 24.2 7.1 0.1 3.7 0.2 0.2 1.0 0.2 Total 100.0 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0"

Women Self-employed with or without employee

9.9 37.2 13 3.8 35.4 4.3 7.9 8.1 7.9

Employee 75.4 6.1 67.4 96.1 60.4 95.5 91.5 90.7 91.5

Family worker 14.8 56.7 19.6 0.1 4.2 0.2 0.6 1.2 0.6

Total 100.0 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0"Total

Self-employed with or without employee

15.9 54.7 20 6.5 67.7 8.0 11.7 11.2 11.6

Employee 74.6 5.0 67.3 93.4 28.4 91.8 88 87.6 87.9

Family worker 9.5 40.3 12.7 0.1 3.9 0.2 0.4 1.2 0.4

Total 100.0 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0" 100.0"Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey All differences are significant on min. p<0.05 level

The overall presence of temporary employment is more accentuated in Hungary.

According to data analysed by Hárs its prevalence has grown over the past decade from 7 to

10 per cent and while at the beginning of the period it affected men to a greater extent, the

gender gap has gradually closed, caused by a rather high pace of rise among women.

Although it provides an important element of flexibility in the employment relation this form

of employment has gradually lost its meaning of granting extra possibilities to both parties

involved, becoming more and more an involuntary, out-of-coercion form of wage labour at

least for the employee. Temporary work is primarily relied upon by small firms with less than

5 employees and while according to Hárs’s results all significant forms of atypical

52""

employment are restricted to the highly educated, temporary work makes for a notable

exception (Hárs, 2012:115–128). Nevertheless, although on general level temporary

employment is rare in Romania accounting for less than 2 per cent of total employment its

share rises abruptly among part-time employees to one-fifth among men working part-time

outside agriculture.

Figure 8

Full-time and part-time employees by gender and job permanency in Romania* and Hungary, 2011 (%)

* Notes: Romania – non-agrarian population Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

While the overall prevalence of temporary work is higher in Hungary than in Romania in

both countries part-time employment raises the likelihood of temporary work. We find the

highest share of temporary workers among part-time working Hungarian men, followed by

Romanian men working in the agriculture. Following the general trend among female part-

time employees temporary jobs are less widespread, although significantly higher in Hungary

than in Romania. Contrary to Hárs’s findings, however, most part-timers who work on

temporary arrangements do so based on rather short-term contracts (Hárs, 2012:117).

Hungarian part-time employees are the most vulnerable in this respect with more than half

0%" 10%" 20%" 30%" 40%" 50%" 60%" 70%" 80%" 90%" 100%"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

Full?Zme"

Part?Zme"

MALE"

FEMALE"

MALE"

FEMALE"

ROMANIA"

HUNGARY

"

98,7%"

80,0%"

99,0%"

86,2%"

92,0%"

61,3%"

93,3%"

61,3%"

1,3%"

20,0%"

1,0%"

13,8%"

8,0%"

38,8%"

6,7%"

38,8%"

Permanent"job" Temporary"job"

53""

having no longer contracts than 3 months. In Romania agriculture offers poorer perspectives

than the industrial and service sector. Comparatively the latter’s position are the least insecure

as nearly 40 per cent of the employees have a contract between 7 and 12 months.

Among the most important motivations to rely on atypical employment – and part-time

work in particular – attempts to cut on personnel costs are complemented by modalities to

allocate labour force more properly to the fluctuations in demand (see for example Visser

2002). Although in our research we did not address employers’ motivations, the data supplied

by the LFS do not point towards the implementation of time flexibility as a means of

matching work with business hours. Contrary to our hypotheses neither is shift labour or

evening and night work more widespread among part-time employees. Moreover, the share of

those full-time employees in Hungary that are involved in working in unsociable hours

exceeds that of part-time workers carrying out jobs in unsocial hours. Secondly, work in the

weekend is basically more common in the Romanian agricultural sector where employers

cover the needs of agrarian labour with part-time rather than full-time workers.

The last indicator of the status and level of privileges attached to part-time work

compared to full-time is the degree of responsibility associated with each form of work. One

of the central arguments of the opponents of labour market integration via part-time work is

the latter’s general confinement to marginal, high-turnover, subordinated routine positions

which does not provide many chances for outward or upward mobility (see for example

Jenkins 2004). According to our data Hungarian part-time employment does indeed decrease

the chance of holding a job with any responsibility. It does so by three times among women

and by two times among men. However, we did not find any statistically significant

association between working time flexibility and endowment with decision making tasks in

Romania, whether we included agriculture or not.

Lastly in our investigation of Hungarian and Romanian part-time workers’ exposure to

vulnerability we turn to the specific demographic arrangement employees come from. As we

described earlier European trends point toward a concentration of atypical employment at the

entry and exit periods to and from the labour market in the case of men, while the age

distribution of women involved in part-time labour does not have a U-shape, but it is spread

more evenly across age groups. This is partly due to the fact an important segment of women

see part-time work as a means of reconciling caring responsibilities with wage labour (Delsen,

1998:62). We have not found any significant relationship between working time flexibility

and family status in terms of raising children or living in couples in Hungary. In Romania,

however, there seem to be two major groups of those who take up part-time work: the first,

54""

making up more than one third of this labour market segment is formed by both older and

younger childless persons living alone or in couples, while the other, around 27 per cent is

constituted by adult individuals raising at least a child below 15 years, but although living

with other adults, they do not form a couple. Living in such a family pattern and working as a

part-time employee is almost exclusively related to poverty and very low level of education.

In other words, part-time work seems to be a coping strategy of adults who experience a

transitory family crisis.

In the present section we concentrated upon dimensions of vulnerability among full-time

and part-time employees, revealing the threats they need to face when taking up flexible

work. We have shown that its involuntary character is more accentuated in Romania which

also explains the lower share of those in Hungary who would like to switch to a full-time job.

According to the respondents’ interpretation transitory character is the most characteristic

feature of the part-time job they held by the time of the interview and as such this was the

main motivation behind their quest of a different working place. The lower income resulting

from shorter working hours came second as a determining factor, while poor working

conditions (including pay, working time schedule, travel and others) were rather marginal for

Hungarians and more important but third in the row in Romania. Tilly’s thesis according to

which not part-time work as such but the economic sectors, segments and occupations are

primary responsible for the marginality of flexible employment is not supported by our data

(Tilly 1992).

The!determinants!of!part>time!work!in!Hungary!and!Romania!

Although general part-time rates ranked Romania higher than Hungary in the hierarchy of the

societies adopting various forms of working time flexibility, a closer look revealed that

similarly to general employment data part-time rates are largely influenced by the significant

role agriculture plays in the Romanian economy. Due to the high share of agrarian workers

within employment the methodology of the Labour Force Survey needed some adjustments in

2002. The modifications consisted in the uplift of the threshold of agricultural self-

employment and family work from 1 to 15 hours per week. The rather specific and decisive

status of the agricultural sector in providing employment was the reason behind our decision

to exclude the agrarian sector throughout our analysis carried out in the present chapter. The

primary motivation was to grant real comparability to our data: in Hungary the share of

55""

agricultural employment is marginal both in full-time and part-time work. The second reason

of separating agricultural part-time employment from the rest of economic activities was that

as the former is mainly dominated by self-employment and family work we considered that

the structure and the mechanism of work allocation, as well as the virtual lack of a labour

market in the agrarian self- and family employment grants the two forms of part-time

employment completely different characters.

Agricultural part-time employment shows many more similarities with agrarian full-time

employment than the rather rare and incidental part-time work in manufacturing and the

service sector. In fact, over one third of the total Romanian agricultural employment is made

up of part-time workers. Overall, the educational level of agricultural part-time workers is

close to that of full-timers working in the agrarian sector: contrary to our expectations

secondary school graduates are also represented in both groups, as opposed for example to

part-time employees working outside agriculture. The profile of part-time workers in the

Romanian agriculture can be drawn as follows: this is a largely feminised segment of the

labour market with participants significantly older both than full-timers and part-timers

outside agriculture. A significant group of this category is made up of persons who are

simultaneously retired and working in flexible time arrangements. According to our data

taking up part-time work in the agriculture within the frameworks of small family enterprises

seems to be the survival strategy of former and present pensioners who live in households

without any dependants. Standard employer-employee relationships are nearly completely

missing: about half of this population – mostly the men – are registered as self-employers,

with or without employees, while the other half – women, usually – are categorised as family

workers. Neither of these two forms of employment is widespread in other sectors of the

Romanian or Hungarian part-time employment. Whereas according to Hakim employment

types like that of family work has been vanishing out in Europe in agriculture or other

economic activities its share remains constant and high in Romania. Just like self-employment

this form of work is usually being carried out for profit instead of wage, but the profit in most

cases is not being calculated on individual level. Additionally, there are several other features

that differentiate it from regular wage labour: there is no proper labour market for the

encounter of labour supply and demand in case of family workers and the self-employed, and

thus no competition, working time is flexible and difficult to keep a record of, and lastly, it is

likely to not be covered by any kind of system of social contributions (Hakim, 1996:34). The

two typical occupations covered by both part-time and full-time workers in the Romanian

agriculture are skilled agricultural work and elementary occupations. Working time, besides

56""

age is basically the basic differentiating element between agrarian full-time and part-time

work. The typical length of the working week of a part-time worker is 11–20 hours and the

share of part-timers carrying out work in the weekend is higher than compared to full-timers.

While Romanian part-time employment fails to bear any marks of the European pattern of

flexible employment, primarily due to its heavy reliance on agriculture it is rather surprising

that it is part-time work in the agrarian sector that fulfils one of the ‘classical’ roles of atypical

employment, that is to match labour with fluctuating and unsocial ‘business hours’.

Another well definable albeit smaller group of flexible employment is that of voluntary

part-time workers whose decision to choose atypical work was informed by their roles

assumed in the private sphere. Although present in both societies their size in relative and

absolute terms only makes it possible for the Hungarian case to describe this working

population in depths. People who claimed that part-time employment was a deliberate choice

based on their caring duties towards children and incapacitated adults are preponderantly

women in their thirties and many of their social and demographic characteristics match with

those known from European descriptions: women with higher educational attainment (that is

secondary and tertiary level graduates) are overrepresented in this population and as such the

majority of these voluntary part-time workers pursue white collar careers: they work as

professionals, technicians, clerical workers and service, as well as sales workers. However,

the single most notable difference between Hungarian and the European pattern of voluntary

part-time work aiming at facilitating work and family reconciliation lies in working time: the

great majority of the Hungarian women involved work half or marginal hours, that is between

11 and 20 hours per week and only around one third is hired for more than 20, but less than

30 hours.

Most studies tackling the low incidence of working time flexibility in former socialist

countries have been puzzled by its causes. If many former research have pointed to the role of

employers in raising the share of part-time workers (Smith et al., 1998) we must at least

presuppose that the lack of such interests prevent companies and institutions in Central and

Eastern Europe from relying on atypical employment. Financial incentives are crucial in

motivating employers to switch from the exclusive reliance on standard full-time employment

to alternative forms. Although in the Hungarian service sector around 8 per cent of employees

are part-timers this is not meant to cover openings and business hours outside the standard

working schedule. In Romania, on the other hand, where part-time work is almost non-

existent outside agriculture the lack of any significant difference between full-timers’ and

part-timers’ wages acts as a serious impediment for employers to use atypical employment.

57""

The initial objective of the present analysis was to explore the characteristics of part-time

employment in the two countries. Based on the latest data of the European Labour Force

Survey available (2011) the description of the working population involved in part-time work

aimed at creating the social and demographic profile of atypical employees. Lastly, bearing in

mind the gaps between Western and Eastern European labour flexibility practices we

embarked upon exploring whether and to what extent these countries exhibit features of

growing flexibility?

Several of the characteristics traditionally associated with the European pattern of rising

flexible employment are present in the two labour markets studied. However, none of these

result in a coherent picture that would enable us to set up an ‘Eastern European’ model of

working time flexibility. Nor do they make it possible to preview a teleological process of

eventually growing part-time rates based on present signs. As a summary and a synthesis of

the mainly descriptive statistical analysis carried out so far we attempted to identify those

social and demographic factors that determine both on the employers’ and employees’ side

the occurrence of part-time employment. In order to do that we ran a binary logistic

regression with the dependent variable ‘the person working either full-time or part-time’. The

results of the two regression analyses are included in Table 5.

In Romania part-time employment is the most likely to occur – keeping all other

variables under control – among women, temporary workers and employees of micro-

companies employing not more than 10 persons. In Hungary in addition to these factors older

age (above 65 years), low level of qualification, as well as employment in the hotel and

catering branch of activities improves the likelihood of holding a part-time job.

58""

Table 5

Determining and non-determining factors of part-time employment in Romania and Hungary (binary logistic regression) Romania Hungary Exp (B) Exp (B) Gender (ref: male) 0.357* 0.303*** Age group 25–34 (ref: 15–24) 1.399 0.343 Age group 35–44 (ref: 15–24) 2.130 0.373 Age group 45–54 (ref: 15–24) 2.589 0.373 Age group 55–64 (ref: 15–24) 3.859 0.667 Age group 65 and above (ref: 15–24) 4.619 12.988* Employer size 11–19 (ref: 1–10

employees) 0.391 0.497*

Employer size 20–49 (ref: 1–10 employees) 0.283* 0.514*

Employer size 50 and above (ref: 1–10 employees) 0.065** 0.337***

Education: vocational (ref: primary or less) 0.827 0.761

Education: secondary (ref: primary or less) 0.461 0.477*

Education: tertiary (ref: primary or less) 0.506 0.345** Own child in the household below 5

(dummy) 1.454 0.965

Number of own children in the household below 8 1.420

1.405

Trade and retail sector 0.489 1.436 Agricultural sector 1.288 - Construction 0.847 - Hotel and catering - 2.366* Research - 1.954 Support services - 1.943 Public administration and defense - 1.624 Temporary contract (ref: permanent

contract) 17.867*** 4.688***

Total variance explained 18.7% 15.5% Cox & Snell R square 0.017 0.073 Nagelkerke R square 0.194 0.189 Notes: * = p<0.5, **= p<0.05, *** = p<0.001

The differences between the two labour markets with respect to the determinant factors of

part-time employment are not limited to the number of variables significantly influencing

individuals’ likelihood to be involved in a flexible working arrangement. The structure and

character of the impacting factors are different, as well. In Hungary several dimensions of the

59""

demand side seem to have an influence on determining the temporal aspect of employment:

the conditions of employment in terms of permanency of the contract, the size of the

company, as well as the main branch of economic activity it belongs to. Small firms (with less

than 10 workers) involved in providing hotel and catering services are most likely to rely

heavier than other economic actors on two human resource-allocation strategies: temporary

employment and part-time work. However, keeping the variables of economic sector,

company size and form of contract under control, three central characteristics of the labour

supply were found significant. Women, as well as persons having no more than primary level

education and older people of 65 years and more had higher chance of being hired on part-

time basis.

These arrangements lead to preponderantly marginal forms of part-time employment with

the majority of workers recruited from vulnerable labour market groups (in terms of gender,

age and educational level) and concentrated in lower status, insecure jobs and branches of

economy. In spite of the existence of a small share of employees who refer to other statuses

and responsibilities which prevent them from taking up full-time work the most significant

determinant factors point toward an overall marginal status of part-time work. Based on these

features, but at the same time keeping in mind the contradictory characteristics of Hungarian

part-time employment we suggest to label the Hungarian case as being mostly demand led

and at the same time en route toward greater flexibility. The growing reliance of the service

sector on flexibility, as well as the general social and demographic characteristic of workers

involved, along with the overlap of several forms of labour market vulnerability, may all be

regarded as incipient signs of spreading flexibility. However, firms’ reservations to use part-

time employment as a means of adapting labour force to fluctuations in business hours and

demand suggest that further flexibilisation would need additional financial incentives from

the state. At the time being work in unsocial hours is restricted to full-time employers which –

partially based on our interview experiences – is due to the costs of hiring part-time workers.

In opposition to the Hungarian case Romanian labour market flexibility is almost

exclusively supply led. If we take a closer look we can see that all three determinant factors –

among which two seem to belong to the demand side of the labour market – are in fact related

to the labour market supply. This is primarily due to the fact that most part-time employees

work either as self-employees or as family workers. The methodological difficulties of

reporting personal monthly income in both cases explain the lack of any difference between

the wage level of full-timers and part-timers. Labour Force Surveys do not record double

labour market statuses: they regularly include the pensioners, the housewives, persons on

60""

parental leave or the students in the inactive category, whereas the unemployed form a third

group, both being separated from the employed. This prevents us from seeing clearly the

overlap between retirement, housekeeping, parental leave or unemployment on the one hand

and part-time work on the other. The pieces of information regarding the reasons behind

working part-time, the age of part-time workers, as well as their social and professional status

one year before the survey all converge towards an interpretation according to which part-

time work carried out in agriculture comes either as a second status for most Romanian part-

timers or their registration as part-time self-employed or family workers is a means of a

posteriori formalising their labour market status-quo. Part-time workers involved in

agricultural activities belong to the older active age groups (45–64) and among them

vocational school graduates are overrepresented. However, as overall in Romania and

Hungary agrarian part-time workers are predominantly lower educated. Women’s share is

higher by 10 percentage points than men’s. Agricultural part-time self-employment or family

work can thus be seen as a last resort option of lower educated, mainly vocational school

graduate women and men who are rather likely to raise children below 14 years and who lack

the opportunity to enter any formal or informal employment relation on the labour market.

Instead they choose to create and formalise these statuses themselves within the confinement

of their own or their families’ farms, managing thus at least partly to integrate within the

system of social security2. As opposed then to Hungary and most other countries relying to

different extent on part-time employment the Romanian case may be considered unique as

part-time work is not the result of labour market segmentation by employers targeting at

providing security and better working conditions to primary segment employees through

creating a high turnover segment of disadvantaged secondary segment. Nor is it aimed at

tackling the needs of employees of reconciling family and work. The Romanian agricultural

sector is in a proportion of one third relying on part-time workers who most probably regard it

as the single option left and who create these formal (or informal) labour market statuses

themselves and for themselves. These groups’ retreat or return to agriculture might also be a

response to the lack of part-time employment in the industrial or the service sector.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""2"Although, given that the ILO-definition Labour Force Surveys are based upon do not distinguish between formal and informal work, a significant share of these part-time self-employed and family workers most probably belongs to the informal segment of the Romanian economy.

61""

2.4.!Summary:!towards!a!convergence!thesis?!

The central conclusion of our quantitative study is that in spite of the general statistical

representation of the Romanian part-time employment as higher than the Hungarian the two

countries exhibit very different elements of flexibilisation. While in Romania it is almost

exclusively confined to the agrarian sector, in Hungary the European pattern can be

recognised in terms of the service sector relying more heavily on flexible employment. Part-

time work can be considered as almost inexistent outside the agricultural sector in Romania.

Women and men having either primary level or vocational education, in their active ages with

an over-representation of the age groups above 40, ‘retreated’ to agriculture finding part-time

self-employment in men’s case and part-time family work in women’s case the best or last

employment framework to formalise their labour market status. Their statuses and positions

are excluded from the standard processes of the labour market. These ‘jobs’ are subject to

informal negotiations and are in their large majority considered an involuntary outcome of

their endeavours they would be willing to change anytime.

In Hungary, on the other hand, while it is impossible to predict the future evolution of the

past and present tendencies, some of the features and signs of a gradually flexibilising labour

market may be detected. Especially small firms rely on atypical employment – though

prioritising temporary employment over time flexibility – in order to provide the means for

economic competitiveness. The social and demographic characteristics of part-time

employees are converging toward what we call the European pattern: especially lower

educated, older women working in some branches of the service sector are involved in part-

time employment. In its large majority part-time work is being carried out in marginal

positions of the labour market, however, the Hungarian labour market, as opposed to Romania

grants this opportunity as a transitory or permanent solution to those who are impeded from

taking up full-time work due to a wide range of personal reasons.

62""

3.!Social!representations!of!part>time!work!in!Hungary!and!Romania!

3.1.!Introduction:!the!research!questions!

According to the statistical data analysed and presented during the quantitative phase of the

research neither in Romania, nor in Hungary does the share of those part-time employees who

would ‘wish to take up full-time work instead of part-time’ reach the ratio of involuntary part-

time workers. Only around 60 per cent of involuntary part-time workers in the two countries

expressed their desire to work longer hours. This means that there is at least 40 per cent gap

between the rate of involuntary part-timers and those who would actually wish to switch to

full-time. Moreover, in both countries, ‘other reasons’ and ‘other personal reasons’ are

significant, albeit unknown motivations for working part-time. These are just a few instances

of the questions and dilemmas regarding the motivations and the larger context of people’s

decisions to engage in part-time work that are not sufficiently covered and explored by the

survey. Nevertheless, the variety of motivations and the statistical contradictions between the

self-assessment and aspirations of the working individuals are not the only issues to be solved

and explored by semi-structured interviews.

The present paper offers a view from below of the conditions and outcomes of labour

market flexibility in the two countries as they appear in women’s experiences. At most levels

– in the European Union or at the national level economic and social policy thinking – part-

time employment has been praised more like any other form of atypical work for improving

women’s economic activity (del Boca 2002). Most interpretations are built on the following

type of approach (the one below belongs to one of Hungary’s renowned economists, János

Tímár, who made the following claim in 1998). The affirmations were motivated by his

succinct analysis of the current demographic politics that reconfirms women’s primary

caretaker roles:

“The present family policy developed by the government which acts as a

counterincentive for women’s employment whether they want it or not is a clear

obstacle to the new directions of employment policies. Besides, the introduction of

the universal childcare support (GYES) and the re-introduction of childcare

allowance (GYED) (which ultimately rewards full-time motherhood) involves

63""

several times higher costs than what would cost to encourage part-time

employment. Instead of the supposed advantages (in terms of raising fertility) it

implies a series of disadvantages in the long run: it inhibits the social ascension of

women, limits the endeavours aiming the levelling of inequalities in family budgets

and also contributes to the escalation of other social conflicts… It has been my firm

professional conviction for a long time that in the context of Hungary’s present and

future situation the elimination of the country’s lagging in terms of part-time

employment would lead not only to important, but also to extremely beneficial

social and economic results” (Népszabadság, December, 19, 1998).

Just as in the above quotation part-time work is often seen – especially in countries where

this form of atypical employment is rather rare – that work in reduced hours would make a

more equilibrated division of effort possible between child care and working tasks for women,

translated eventually in improved economic independence and welfare. Additionally,

especially demographers claim that part-time work would inarguably improve not only female

employment rates and women’s economic situation, but their propensity for childbearing, too

(Frey, 2009:33, Blaskó, 2006:91–92). It is characteristic to such approaches that it leaves the

traditional patriarchal division of labour between men and women unchallenged, and does not

address the issue of the social and economic status emerging out of part-time employment

either. It is not typical in the Central and Eastern European political, economic and social

policy discourses to mention part-time work for its supposed benefices of improving the

employment of other labour market groups. This, in our opinion is mainly due to the fact that

in the context of low average income level that characterises most former socialist countries

reduced wages (or half wages for that matter) are only a viable solution for those who receive

financial support from other sources, be it a family member, pension, social allowance or

others (Smith et al. 1998). Moreover, in many cases public urge to encourage or offer state

support to the spread of part-time work envisages middle class white collar women and

families where the transitory loss of a half wage is a smaller threat than the woman’s longer

time or permanent incapacity to regain employment. All these aspects were crucial in

motivating us to focus exclusively on woman part-time employees in order to understand their

experience of atypical employment.

64""

!

3.2.!The!methodology!of!the!qualitative!study!

Throughout 2013 we conducted 45 semi-structured interviews with part-time employees,

several employers, and we also carried out expert interviews in temporal employment

agencies and HR-specialists in order to reveal the meanings attached to part-time work by the

actors involved themselves. Throughout the interviews which were based on the interview

guide included in Appendix 6 the operationalization of part-time work and the setting up of

the questions were instrumental to addressing the following research questions:

1. What are the dominant and typical narratives and interpretations occurring in the

discourse of part-time working women; what are the most common topics emerging during

these interviews?

2. What are the main conceptions, motivations and interpretations of part-time

employment? How does part-time work structure individual female working careers? In what

life stages do women rely on working fewer hours and how does it influence their future work

paths?

3. What is the influence of part-time work on women’s private life in terms of social

conceptions of mothering, the sexual division of labour in and outside the household? Does it

and if so, to what extent, contribute to a reshaping of family power relations, especially when

part-time work is not the alternative to full-time work, but to inactivity?

Interviews have been conducted in urban Romania and Hungary with women aged 18–64

having either in the present or in the past experience related to part-time work. The main

focus of the research was on employees working or having worked as part-timers, however,

there have been some interviews carried out with women working either in the informal or the

formal sector as self-employed. Interviewees have been approached in many different ways:

- through fellow part-time workers or colleagues;

- through employers in case the selected company had a part-time policy;

- through internet-advertisements or using the help of a non-profit organisation assisting

women’s reinsertion to the labour market.

As in most similar cases the method of contacting and selecting interviewees was the

snowball-method. However, as networks of part-time employees did not consist of more than

3 or 4 members, the risk of excessive homogeneity in terms of occupational group

65""

membership or social background was low. Within this number of interviews four smaller

case studies have been conducted (covering 3–4 interviews per case) in order to be able to

explore inter-company relationship between part-time and full-time employees. The total

number of interviews is displayed by status, category and country in the following table:

Table 6

The distribution of the interviews carried out for the study (number of persons)

Romania Hungary Blue collar part-time workers 3 13 White collar part-time workers

10 13

Blue collar full-time workers 1 Employers 1 1 Expert interviews 1 HR-specialist at a recruiting

agency 1 HR-specialist

1 HR-specialist, legal adviser

The mere inexistence of part-time work in Romania has marked the success of our

endeavours of finding women available for interviews. We decided not to include agrarian

part-time self- or family-employment as it represents a very different case of labour market

status. As Petrovici and Gorton describe, the steadily fluctuating or growing agricultural

sector in Romania is to a large extent the result of the increasing share of subsistence

producers working on a part-time basis (Petrovici & Gorton 2005). In the case of the

Romanian agriculture part-time employment making up around one third of the sector does

not reflect – as it typically does in other European labour market or elsewhere – the outcome

of the encounter between the demand and the supply side of the labour market characterised

by particular motivations and objectives and structured by a set of particular conditions and

conceptions of work and economic competitiveness. On the contrary, agrarian part-time work

whether formal or informal is a form of self-employment aiming at providing livelihood for

that mainly active aged segment of the population which would most probably choose part-

time or full-time employment in the urban areas – should there be such opportunities.

Thus, in the selection of our interviewees we mainly focused on the following sectors and

economic activities:

- support services, shared services (call centres) in both countries

- elementary occupations (cleaning, catering) in the hotel and catering sector or informally

- sales occupations in trade and retail

- elementary occupations in trade and retail

66""

- middle and higher level white collar (administrative) occupations mainly in the

telecommunication and outsourced HR-sector

- highly qualified specialists working in the banking or the industrial sector

3.3.!Representations!of!part>time!work!

Common perceptions of part-time employment are centred on its transitory character both in

cases in which the lack of alternatives is recognised by the interviewee and when employees

regard it as the best possible option for them. Interviews have revealed that part-time workers

regard the flexible time arrangements they are benefiting from as contrary to or at least

incompatible with the shared norms of full-time standard work. The degree to which

respondents saw working fewer hours as incompatible with expectations to ‘acceptable’ work

was among others contingent upon the role work occupied in their self-representation. Those

perceiving work as providing only a secondary and complementary status to their primary

status of retired, carer or student were less likely to refer to any feeling of contradiction.

Likewise, discontent with this type of work was most likely to occur among women whose

part-time wage was the primary or at least constitutive income in the family. As a rule, part-

time jobs are chosen by and they also reinforce secondary earner statuses within families and

households. The present section deals with the presentation of two ideal types of part-time

work: as granting primary and secondary status. All women whom we conducted interviews

with referred to their work as not only providing an income, but satisfying other needs, too.

On the other hand, pensioners and full-time students regarded work as only secondary

compared to their first status.

Part>time!work!during!early!motherhood!

During the first three to five years of motherhood part-time employment is defined as an

opportunity. In fact, for several women – either raising children with their husbands working

abroad or having children with special needs – shorter and flexible time arrangement is the

only possibility to engage in gainful employment.

67""

“To me part-time work means the very opportunity to work. Hadn’t been for

part-time work opportunities, I wouldn’t be able to work at all.” (33 years,

tertiary graduate, working at a call centre, Budapest)

As such, it is only accessible for a few employees. In most cases the opportunity of

working part-time after giving birth is restricted to what Tilly (1992) called ‘retention

workers’: high status white collar employees who have gathered rather long periods of

seniority within the company and thus employers are willing to accommodate the volume of

work for a transitory period in order to benefit from the firm-specific knowledge of the

employee.

“Well, we are most definitely the exception. Most people don’t even know

what this really entails.” (40 years, tertiary graduate working at a

multinational company, Budapest)

“The work itself is not easy. In fact it wasn’t easy to learn how to do it. Now

I’m working completely different things than before. Before I never ran a

project, I was not aware what it meant. But the advantage of my former

positions was that I knew how the company worked, how it was structured and

what changes it underwent. I’m not saying I’ve learned it all by now, but I was

very lucky with my boss who knew me and knew where to send me in what

type of a position”. (40 years, tertiary graduate working at a multinational

company, Budapest)

Other women have benefitted from the help of former colleagues when applying for a part-

time job. These jobs are only rarely advertised as part-time, they do not regularly appear on

the open market. Internal knowledge of the organisation, strong contacts and proven

competence in the field are necessary to apply with success for these types of jobs.

“After spending one year looking for a part-time job I ran into my former

middle boss accidentally. I was lucky because he was on the verge of adopting

a child and how I was already an adoptive parent I had the opportunity of

meeting him once more. At the new company he was working at, he told me,

there was an open position which on request could be turned into a part-time

job. And in fact the only help he offered was to bring my CV directly to the

HR-department. This wasn’t a guarantee for anything, but it counted a lot. It

68""

was a guarantee that they would invite me to the interview. There I was

treated as all other applicants: it had three phases, and there of course I took

advantage from the fact that I had been working as a call centre operator

before, I knew how to deal with all the tasks. But without him helping me I

wouldn’t have had the chance of participating at the interview.” (34 years,

tertiary graduate, working at a shared service company, Budapest)

Although part-time work during the first years of children’s lives is meant to conserve

traditional division of work between mothers and fathers and help mothers reconcile the two

roles, some women have offered a slightly different interpretation. In their approach part-time

work if planned for a definite period serves as a chance of acclimatisation to the demands of

work (especially following longer years of maternal leave). In the context of insufficient day

care facilities the choice for a private day care costs on the average the same amount of

money the mother earns as a part-time employee. However, the first period spent in a flexible

position eases the pressures felt by working mothers when they need to stay at home with the

sick child. Besides acclimatisation then, part-time working positions if transitory are regarded

by employers with greater flexibility. Many interviewees defined the opportunity to work

part-time as a reward for past accomplishments.

Taking up part-time work as a returning mother has consequences both for the employee

and the employer. Only several occupations and tasks are easily dividable into time slots or

multiple workloads. This forces women to accept jobs that are de-skilling and require lower

level of qualification compared to what they have. On the other hand it is a compromise on

behalf of the employer who is willing to do that only for ‘deserving employees’.

“It’s good that I was taught psychology. At least I know what burnout

is. But every time I start complaining about only working as a call

centre assistant when I have a university degree I tell myself that I have

a part-time job, I can leave at 4 o’clock, go to the school after the kids,

take care of them, what else do I want?” (34 years, tertiary graduate,

working at a shared service company, Budapest)

“After the 1.5 years of maternal leave elapsed, in fact before that I wrote a

mail to my former sales department asking for a part-time job but they told me

no such thing was possible there, they can’t reorganise the schedule of the

employees because of a part-timer” (33 years, tertiary graduate, working at a

MNC, Budapest)

69""

“To me working part-time was a terrible fall-back. From many points of view:

prestige, income, everything. Because it’s not the same, first to work as an

assistant by the vice-CEO and then to turn into a whichever secretary within

the organisation.” (41 years, university graduate, MNC, Budapest)

The advantages offered by the part-time positions these women applied for outnumbered

disadvantages. Nevertheless, when they refer to drawbacks or difficulties they maintain their

general approach to flexible working arrangements as trade-offs. Women working as part-

timers are in most of the cases conscious by the time of application of the difficulties they will

encounter, although few of them had met any other part-time working colleagues. Still, as in

most of their case children and the household are their full responsibility they are willing to

accept the negative aspects of working part-time. These disadvantages are the following: a

part-time employee whether a woman with children or not needs to face the constant

questioning of his/her real motivations and commitment. Secondly, the relationship with full-

time colleagues is often one of subordination. Thirdly, partly as a consequence of the first

difficulty, career advancement possibilities are rather restricted, and fourthly, transition to

full-time status is often hindered by several factors.

Commitment to work is considered to be contingent on the allocation of time to

performing the job (Oborni 2009). Thus, applying for a part-time position especially due to

family responsibilities is equated with weaker motivations and identifications with the general

aims of the organisation. The demand for greater command of someone’s own working and

leisure time contradicts the neo-liberal ideal of full devotion to the working place. In the

context of the neo-liberal ideals of the most valued characteristics of the employee – “extra-

hours availability, authoritativeness, determination and sociability skills” (Petrovici, 2010:11)

– the quest for reduced working hours amount to an identification as a less obedient and less

committed employee. These understandings are shared by employees and employers alike and

are rarely being questioned. Of the following two quotes from two interviews the first

illustrates dilemmas of self-perception as a ‘lazy worker’, while the second admits the inner

struggles of accepting or rejecting definitions by others – colleagues, partners – as less

committed employee:

“While I never thought I would say that, now I’m only quietly wondering

whether I really want to switch back to full-time or not. Of course I don’t want

70""

my husband to think I am lazy or something. Or that I am not able to handle

pressure… It’s an ego-thing, I guess. I’m struggling because it’s much cosier

to work for only 6 hours a day and gain those 2 hours to spend with the

children. I have to sort these things out.” (34 years, university graduate, MNC,

Budapest)

“To be honest it took me some time not to feel ashamed when I go to the

office in the morning and see that the day before I was sent an e-mail at half

past 3 which I didn’t reply. Because if anybody says anything or complains

about something until not long ago I was very disappointed. I can hardly put

up with this sort of criticism when someone doesn’t appreciate my work. And

the thing is that working only 6 hours a day you can’t have the same

attitude… well, attitude is not the right word, you can’t have the same

performance as someone working for 8 hours. But it took me some time to be

able to deal with this and now I accepted it and I don’t mind when a colleague

is unhappy with me working 2 hours less.

I had to sort these things out with myself in the first place. That no, my

priorities are different. That my very first priority is not to be the last parent

who brings her child home from the day care. And when a partner, not close

colleagues but partners hold it against you that they already sent the mail a day

before you need to say that yes, it was after 3 o’clock, and my program ends at

3 o’clock. As I told you it takes time to come to peace with it. That you will

never be worth a full-time colleague” (38 years, tertiary graduate, MNC,

Budapest)

However, according to the collective representations of part-time employees the working

ethics and habits commonly associated with mothers hired on a part-time basis contain a

differentiating element often defined in terms of compensation for the shorter hours:

punctuality and high efficiency. Even if good organisational and time management skills are

motivated by the needs of the family this aspect arises in nearly every interview conducted

with women with young children and there are invoked as a valued traits they have to offer

‘in return’ for shorter working schedule.

“I don’t see why employers in general are reluctant to hire part-time workers.

They just simply don’t get it that if they split the workload into two, they

would have the same costs, but would be able to employ two persons. And

71""

what’s more, I think that those who have children are much more efficient,

because they hurry. They don’t have time to drink coffees, to smoke or to have

lunch for one hour. Ever since I have had the kids I never spent one hour

having lunch, because I wanted to make sure I was able to leave at a particular

hour to get them from the school. But no, they wouldn’t understand that.” (36

years, secondary school graduate, former part-time employee at a call centre,

Vecsés-Budapest)

The differentiated perception of full- and part-time workers impacts their intra-

organisational relationship for several reasons. First, as many interviewees emphasised part-

time employees are often regarded as the beneficiaries of exceptionalist leader practices.

Those who benefit from shorter schedules are categorised as ‘the boss’s men (women)’.

Second, both the status of the privileged and the shorter participation in the common activities

deteriorate part-timers’ chance of demonstrating their reliability in the internal networks of

solidarity. Part-timers either come later or leave earlier, they might miss the common lunches,

skip the cigarette and coffee breaks, compensate for non-accomplished tasks. Informal

exchange of information, personal and work-related are important channels of socialisation

and integration many part-timers fail to take part in. As one HR manager of a large recruiting

multinational company revealed employees’ wish to participate in the informal discussions

during breaks stems from a permanent frustration of losing out in the constant competition for

symbolic and material advantages; it is a permanent attempt to strengthen positions within the

organisation through participating at the creation and reproduction of the firm’s internal

culture. The following quote reveals one of the mechanisms of excluding part-time employees

from the shared construction of solidary work environments:

“The other extreme is when in a particularly extreme setting, in a meeting with

a partner, at a ministry or someplace else at the point when we set the date of

the next meeting my boss, on her peculiar voice, says well, let’s ask P. [the

respondent - GR] first, as she has three children and so on. Now that drives me

crazy. Because it’s not that I deny or hide my children, but that is really

unpleasant to be permanently reminded that you need special treatment. Why

doesn’t she know when my program is instead of humiliating me in front of

the partners?” (43 years, university graduate, Piliscsaba, Hungary)

72""

Part-timers’ career related disadvantages stem from the special status occupied within the

organisations. Although only a few interviewees displayed any aspiration for career

advancement, several of the barriers of upward mobility were described. There emerged two

types of impediments. First, the lack of possibility to improve the position within the

organisational structure is not strongly related to part-time status. Just as Tilly (1992) noted

for the cumulated disadvantages of part-time jobs in general, in most of the cases they are not

a consequence of their shorter working hours but of the labour market segment they are

created in. Though not in every case the employee’s option for a part-time job leads to her

removal to a lower level position where the workload may be split or the organisation of the

labour processes allows for the reduction of working hours. These jobs are generally less

likely to permit any upward mobility. The second hindering factor is, however related to the

character of part-time work: as many interviewees described, higher level positions presume a

much heavier workload and multiplied responsibility that is largely incompatible with the

perceived reduced amount of commitment and devotion of part-timers. Representations of

part-time employees prevent leaders of considering these workers’ advancement to higher of

full-time positions.

Part>time!work!as!a!complementary!status!

Working part-time as a student or as a retired person constitutes the two ideal types of

complementary workers. The secondary character of this form of flexible work is in our

understanding a financial matter: the primary income of all the cases we encountered was

provided from other sources. The main function attributed to working at the beginning and at

the end of the working career was to facilitate transition both financially and socially.

During our fieldwork we conducted interviews with current and former part-time

employees working both during secondary and tertiary (or post-graduate) studies. Interpretive

frameworks were rather similar for all cases and they can be labelled as empowering: part-

time work at the early stage of the career bears the meaning of the rites-du-passage towards

adulthood. The first work provides the young with the first personal income, teaches him or

her valuable skills and functions as a practical knowledge-transfer mechanism. Lastly, the

contacts with future or possible employers are seen as especially useful for future job seekers.

However, all interviewees emphasised the transitory character of these first part-time jobs,

permanently signalling its place on the boundary between studentship and working status.

73""

“I had my first part-time job when I was 13. It was my first real, official job in

Szentendre in a restaurant. My duty was to clean the tables, do the dishes; it

was a really responsible work. I loved it!” (49 years, primary level education,

Budapest)

These representations show several similarities with that of pensioners’ part-time work.

Part-time work after retiring is meant as a buffer between activity and inactivity, both socially

and financially.

“My children often ask me for how long do I want to work. We met yesterday

which was my day off. On my days off I take the grandchildren and bring

them here and there. My children need this kind of help and the grandchildren

love my company. They ask me: ‘Grandma, when can we come?’ Now

starting with tomorrow I will have another 3 days off, I’m taking one of them

to me, because I can’t handle both kids simultaneously. When they are with

me I buy them things, it’s usually me who buys them cloths. They are very

expensive nowadays..” (63 years, retired, primary school, Székesfehérvár,

Hungary)

3.4. Re>thinking!the!voluntary!vs.!involuntary!dichotomy!in!the!analysis!of!part>time!work

Sociological literature has placed a relatively small emphasis on micro-social studies of part-

time employment. This is mainly a result of the framework employment issues and several

forms of working relations are dealt with: in light of their beneficial or negative impact upon

national level employment rates ad outcomes. On the other hand the individual (positive)

meanings attached to work – even if under part-time schemes – as an alternative to

unemployment or inactivity has not really been questioned during the past years, since

atypical forms of employment have spread in the European economic systems. The influence

of part-time work on the allocation of labour in the private sphere, as well as on the division

of decision making competencies has been tackled by a few studies (see for example Warren

& Walters 1998), interrogating the role part-time work plays in questioning the patriarchal

division of labour. The lack of scientific interest in the building of individual representations

of and reflections on part-time work has not, in our opinion necessarily reflected a biased

74""

approach towards the character of women’s work. Motivations and aspirations linked to the

decision of taking up part-time work is often considered to be covered by the question

included in surveys that usually categorise possible reasons in the following way:

1) studies,

2) illness or disability,

3) caring duties toward children or incapacitated adults in the family or in the household,

4) other personal reasons (including in most of the cases retirement for example), or

5) the inability to find a full-time job.

Typically the fifth type of part-time employment is being regarded as involuntary,

whereas the rest accounts for voluntary decisions for shorter working hours.

The present section aims at revealing the complex forces that shape people’s decisions

related to work, deconstructing the dual logic of voluntary vs. involuntary part-time work that

informs in a simplifying manner social and policy conceptions of part-time employment. Our

approach is motivated by similar conceptions to that of Warren and Walters (1998) who in

their paper questioned the utility of the schematic dichotomies used for the description of

women’s labour market activity. In their analysis Warren and Walters conclude that the full-

time and part-time dichotomy is indeed a useful conceptual tool for exploring the different

structural positions the average part-timers occupy compared to the average full-time

employee in the labour market in terms of the status of the job in the segmented labour market

and in terms of wages, security and other benefits attached. Nevertheless, understandings of

part-time work should also take into consideration the internally differentiated character of

both categories. As other authors point to (Jenkins 2004) the length of the working time, the

industry or several other indicators are good proxies of the degree to which part-time was a

matter of choice or the outcome of constraints. It does also inform of workers’ self-

perceptions and motivations among which the most well-known are that of Hakim’s ‘home-

centred’ vs. ‘employment-centred’ types of women (Hakim 1996).

In our analysis we go a step further and aim at deconstructing the seemingly

unproblematic category of voluntary vs. involuntary dichotomy by advancing a different

typology of part-time worker women. The departure point is the statistical contradiction

signalled in the previous chapter between the share of self-ascribed involuntary part-time

workers and the ratio of those who would wish to work longer hours.

75""

Table 7

Aspirations of longer working hours among part-time employees by the reason of working part-time and gender, Romania and Hungary (%) Romania Hungary Don’t wish

to work more

Wish to work more

Total Don’t wish to work

more

Wish to work more

Total

Men Person is undergoing school education or training

100.0 0.0 100.0 75.0 25.0 100.0

Of own illness or disability 83.3 16.7 100.0 94.4 5.6 100.0 Looking after children or incapacitated adults

50.0 50.0 100.0 100.0 0.0 100.0

Other family or personal reasons

72.7 27.3 100.0 100.0 0.0 100.0

Person could not find a full-time job

37.6 62.4 100.0 35.0 65.0 100.0

Of other reasons 88.3 11.7 100.0 84.8 15.2 100.0 Total 59.0 41.0 100.0 66.0 34.0 100.0

Women Person is undergoing school education or training

100.0 0.0 100.0 85.7 14.3 100.0

Of own illness or disability 89.5 10.5 100.0 92.3 7.7 100.0 Looking after children or incapacitated adults

75.0 25.0 100.0 87.5 12.5 100.0

Other family or personal reasons

82.9 17.1 100.0 100.0 0.0 100.0

Person could not find a full-time job

48.8 51.2 100.0 41.1 58.9 100.0

Of other reasons 91.9 8.1 100.0 87.8 12.2 100.0 Total 75.6 24.4 100.0 72.3 27.7 100.0

Total Person is undergoing school education or training

100.0 0.0 100.0 81.8 18.2 100.0

Of own illness or disability 86.5 13.5 100.0 93.2 6.8 100.0 Looking after children or incapacitated adults

72.7 27.3 100.0 88.2 11.8 100.0

Other family or personal reasons

80.8 19.2 100.0 100.0 0.0 100.0

Person could not find a full-time job

41.7 58.3 100.0 38.5 61.5 100.0

Of other reasons 90.4 9.6 100.0 86.6 13.4 100.0 Total 67.2 32.8 100.0 69.9 30.1 100.0

All correlations are statistically significant at least on the p<0.05 level

Aspirations and intentions – although covering different aspects and levels of people’s

attitudes – to increase working hours are not limited to those who declared that the reason of

taking up part-time work was the lack of available full-time jobs. On the contrary, while only

60 per cent of involuntary part-time workers expressed their desire to work longer hours, one

76""

quarter of the Romanian women and more than 10 per cent of the Hungarian women working

part-time to reconcile labour with caring duties were also willing to engage in longer schedule

paid work. Generally men are more likely to search for full-time jobs or second jobs, whereas

women are in greater shares content with their present work opportunities. Nevertheless,

while aspirations for longer working hours are present in groups of part-time employees

considered ‘voluntary’, only a small minority of this group actually claimed of having started

looking for another job. Based on these assumptions the following section aims at advancing

a new typology of women working part-time by analysing the set of motivations occurring in

the interviews.

At the beginning of the interview we asked our respondents to succinctly describe what

part-time work means for them. The emerging categories mostly correspond to the ones

adopted by the Labour Force Survey. The most frequent reasons and contexts of carrying out

part-time work are:

Studying: “The reason I only work part-time at the call centre is that I am a PhD-student,

but also I have a scholarship it’s good to earn some extra money. I also have

to teach at the university, but since I only work part-time I can organise my

time and set up my schedule how I want which gives me enough liberty to

volunteer by an organisation. I actually like to work here because I practice

my Italian speaking skills which hopefully will benefit my later attempts to

find work in Italy after defence.” (25 years, university graduate, Cluj)

Reconciling paid labour with caring responsibilities towards young children:

“For me to work as a part-time means basically the very opportunity to work

at all as a mother of very young children. I saw it as an opportunity I was

offered by the firm when the parental leave was off to come back on a

different position where part-time work was possible at all. In my case, as a

woman… we can very flexibly reconcile family and work. So, briefly, part-

time for me is the chance for work while kids are very small.” (37 years,

university graduate, Budapest)

Reconciling paid labour with caring responsibilities towards incapacitated adults:

77""

“I’m compelled to do this because I am also caring for my disabled husband.

So the law only provides me with the possibility of working 4 hours a day, this

is why I had to take up any kind of work, something else than what I learned.

This working place is very close to us which allows me to run quickly home if

and when my husband needs me to. The fact is that I like it, even if it is out of

constraint. But taking all conditions into consideration, I like it. My husband is

fully handicapped, lying in the bed all the time which means he needs

someone on a full-time basis. Where I work is only 5 minutes from our home,

which is why I’m glad I found this possibility. As a full-time carer by my

husband I clean and wash the dishes in a nearby kindergarten, which is very

far from what I studied and what I worked before, but this was the only option

in the neighbourhood.” (55 years, post-secondary non-tertiary educated,

Nagykovácsi)

Handling only shorter working hours as a person living with a disability:

“Well the truth is I had to settle for a part-time job out of constraint. I was a

regular 8-hour per day employee before, but I had a serious spinal surgery

back in 2010 after which I never fully recovered. Because of this condition I

was never able since then to take up 8-hours work either sitting or standing.

So in fact because of this health issue was I compelled to look for a 4-hours

job. My company was very helpful, and indeed I could have also applied for

disability allowance, instead I chose to work part-time. I calculated that I

would be very worse off living only on the disability allowance, so I did

everything I could to stay within the firm. I didn’t even apply for the disability

allowance, but kept hoping that here at the company they would provide me

with some sort of possibility. I had seniority here, had been working here

since 2000, which means this is my 13th year here. I knew a lot of people, and

many people know me, so I was considered a well-tried labour force. My boss

is well-positioned within the company, so he was able to provide me with the

possibility to work only 4 hours a day. At the beginning I worked for 4 hours

at the secretariat, that is the place I was working before the accident as an

assistant and what my boss did was to split the workload into time slots and

gave me the afternoon shift. (…)” (44 years, university graduate, Budapest)

Working as a part-time employee during retirement:

78""

“You know, I was like…, when I retired, actually when retirement was

already close enough I was very disappointed. I couldn’t explain it to myself.

But at the end I was a full-time pensioner only for a few days because K. [her

employer -GR] asked me if I could come for a couple of days per week to

work. So I did. And ever since I feel that although I have a partner, because

my husband died 6–7 years ago, and my partner is really helpful, does many

things at home, but still it is very good that one is able to leave the house once

in a while, go outside, meet other people.” (61 years, retired, primary classes,

Székesfehérvár)

Working part-time due to lack of full-time jobs

“Well it is great to work part-time if you think of your home and your family,

because you can spend more time with them, but financially it’s really not

worth it. Financially it is only a disadvantage. Especially when you work 4

hours a day. That doesn’t lead you anywhere. I always say that when someone

works 4 hours a day it’s as if they would work a half day, it’s a half work. And

moreover, if that’s official in the first place one year counts as a half year in

the pension system, and the taxes do not count as much. So it’s not worth it. I

don’t like 4-hours jobs, 6-hours might be OK if necessary, but to work legally

8 hours a day, well, that’s the best of all.” (38 years, primary classes working

as a cleaner, Pilisvörösvár, Hungary)

Most respondents emphasising choice and agency in their decisions to take up part-time

work are embedding it in discourses of motherhood, underlying the contradictory and

problematic norms of fulfilling caring tasks and enacting working roles simultaneously

(Webber and Williams 2008). Women’s representations of their own work are almost every

time contingent upon a series of other external factors and they are eager to reflect upon it

every time they attempt to conceptualise their roles as working persons.

Nevertheless, even in cases when part-time work was labelled by respondents as

voluntary and as responding to the need of matching families’ needs to the need or wish to

work interviews revealed a series of constraints coming from different actors which structured

and constrained these employment statuses and relations. The majority of these constraining

79""

factors were only rarely reflected upon in terms of constraints, rather as taken-for-granted

cultural elements of the gender regimes or of the normative work ethics.

Expectations towards proper ways of enacting motherhood

Without any specific question being asked in this respect women engaged in part-time

work during the early years of their children’s lives felt the necessity to draw upon or

legitimise their decisions, especially in cases when the intent to return to work contradicted

the norm of staying at home for three years (Blaskó 2010). In opposition to the Romanian

system of family policies where parental leave for those eligible based on a minimum period

of social security contributions is two years the most, the Hungarian system is characterised

by a much more generous, less restrictive, though class-sensitive approach to assisting parents

in the early years of their children’s lives (Fodor et al. 2002). Parents, usually mothers, can

benefit from the 2-year parental leave when eligibility criteria are met (one year of social

contributions before the child’s birth), however, the homestay period may be prolonged to

three years. In the last year the home staying parent receives a modest childcare support,

universally available. Several studies have described the mechanisms through which welfare

systems through their gendered understanding of women’s social roles prescribe and reinforce

traditional or more equalitarian patterns of division of labour both in the public and the

private sphere (Pascall and Lewis 2004, González et al. 2000). The Hungarian public opinion

is characterised by a fairly high level of consensus with regard to the roles mothers should

enact and while this is less focused upon the content of mothering, time – that is the number

of years spent exclusively on child caring – is endowed with a powerful symbolic meaning.

Reinforced by publicly visible and highly popular psychologists as the ‘professional actors’

and ‘opinion leaders’ of the matter, there is a strong expectation towards women to reorganise

priorities in the first three years of their children’s lives. While the debate seemingly focuses

on psychological arguments regarding the number of years a child should be spending with

his or her mother, in fact, in our opinion, the stake of the debate is at least partly prescribing

women’s social roles. The following quotes are originated in interviews conducted with

women who returned to the labour market before the 3 years elapsed:

“Well, we were experienced, because with our middle child I already felt that

they need children’s community, that at 2 years I was already not enough for

him. So we thought we would bring him to daycare when he’s 2-year-old. And

80""

we were right, because the third child was even more ready for children’s

company by the time she was 2 and it was a really good decision to take her to

daycare. When we took her I was at home for a half more year and after that I

did not have to work overtime so I was able to bring her home every day in

due time. So in my opinion childcare did not harm my child, on the contrary, it

benefitted her.” (39 years, university graduate, Budapest)”

“In our decision we followed Jenő Ranschburg’s (a renowned psychologist in

Hungary) advice who said that the proper age for a child to go to day-care is

1.5 years. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t already been

pregnant with the second child when the older was 2 years old. In fact it was a

conscious decision to have the two kids as quickly and as close to each other

as possible to be over the way with the difficulties of the early years. By the

time my older child was 1.5 years I would have already spent 3.5 years at

home which was more than enough. So when she was 1.5 years we took her to

day care whether anybody liked it or not. In fact we brought her half year

before I went back to work to gain 2 or 3 months of regeneration for myself

and to be able to work out advantageous conditions for a good comeback.” (34

years, university graduate, Budapest)

“My child was very social from the beginning so it’s not that day care harmed

him. On the contrary, he had lots of fun there.” (33 years, secondary school,

sales worker, Vecsés, Hungary)

There are many forms of factors that prescribe and influence women’s perception of their

roles as mothers and the expected behaviour, especially in the first years of the child’s life.

This is not to say that it is widespread to consider these expectations external and in terms of

coercion. However, neither the opposite is true. The point of our argument is that while on

macro-statistical level and also in public conceptions part-time work meant to harmonise “the

incompatible demands of work and motherhood’ (Webber and Williams 2008:17) is regarded

as a form of voluntary part-time this is in many cases the outcome of a series of other factors.

Among these, norms and expectations towards motherhood are probably the most important.

The following quote from an interview conducted with a high status economic analyst

working at a multinational company in Cluj illustrates it:

81""

“I came back to work when my daughter was 11 months old. Or 12, I’m not

sure. We had to hire two baby sitters; each was staying for four hours a day

with her. The cost of the baby sitters made up for almost half of my monthly

salary, but it was worth it. I’m sorry but full-time motherhood just wasn’t for

me. When she was smaller and I was walking her in the park, I was watching

the other mothers how happy and content they were, while my kid was

screaming and crying all the time. For me it was very important to come back

to work, I was longing for it.” (31 years, chief economic analyst, Cluj)

Women’s self-perceptions both at mothers and as workers are situated and are the

products of a set of complex, interrelated inputs: norms regulating the social roles they are

supposed to enact and expectations from employers. The latter are embedded in

representations of ‘mothers as unreliable workers.’ Already having internalised these

expectations many women already give up searching for proper employment, not even trying

to reconcile irreconcilable roles:

“With four children I’m very well aware how unreliable I am. I am not to trust

because anytime one can become ill, a fever can appear suddenly during the

night and the next morning I must call in and ask for a day off. That doesn’t

work. They must always have someone in mind as a replacement to call in

when I can’t go. Workplaces don’t work this way. Especially that one of my

kids has asthma.” (42 years, primary classes, working in the informal

economy as a cleaner, Pilisvörösvár)

Glass and Fodor described the same mechanisms of applying motherhood penalties to

women in their fertile age in the financial and banking sector, exploring how employers

anticipate the ‘losses’ attached to future mothers through recruiting, hiring and labour

practices (Glass & Fodor, 2011). In the interviews conducted with women working either in

the formal or the informal sector as part-timers representations and anticipations of mothers as

unreliable workers shape not employers’, but employees’ and future or aspiring employees’

practices. In imagining their roles as working mothers the topic of revealing one’s status as a

mother and the child’s illness come up instantly and at all times:

“At that particular interview their attitude was nice, there was no problem that

I had children. But this is also because I always start by saying that I am a

82""

mother. I don’t agree to it’s a good idea to conceal that. I probably say this

because we have very often problems with the kids, they are quite often ill, so

I have to stay at home regularly. Now on sick leave because of them, too. Just

imagine the anger if after hiding that I was a mother I would ask for the first

time for a sick leave. They would fire me immediately. In fact this is probably

the reason I was called in for only a few interviews, because I was honest

enough to include it into my CV that I had two children.” (34 years, tertiary

graduate, working at a shared service company, Budapest)

“At the interview they were of course aware that I was a mother and they

acknowledged what this meant. I remember that during the interview they

were asking me about my ideas of solutions when my children would be ill.

Whether I had any help or not. Because otherwise they knew a mother is one

week working and the other week missing when her children are young.

However, I was able to rely on my mother which meant that I almost never

had to stay at home because of my children’s illness.

Q: What do you think would have happened hadn’t you had any help? Would

have that influence your chance of getting the job?

Well I’m almost sure.” (33 years, college graduate, part-time secretary,

Budapest)

Interviews reveal an entire set of strategies tackling the issue of including personal

information in the CV. While the existence or even the desire to have children are addressed

by employers and interviewers during the hiring process, the only room left for applicants to

enact their agency and to control the amount of personal information is being revealed

concerning their personal lives is the curriculum vitae. HR-specialists and experienced job

seekers have an entire inventory of strategies and practices including children and former

periods of maternity leave ‘wisely’ in the CV.

However, maternity is not the single – though the most obvious – case of part-time work

apparently voluntary, but in fact in many instances chosen as a result of a set of constraints.

Legal bindings – prohibiting certain groups of people full-time work – are another source of

constraint. Thus, motivations of working part-time included as a rule in the wide category of

voluntary part-timers become seriously restricted by legal provisions. The most obvious case

is that of those caring for ill or incapacitated relatives – children, older persons – who in most

countries are banned from taking up a full-time job. If they must work full-time, informal

83""

market remains the single solution left. In Hungary, those receiving maternity assistance are

prohibited from working more than 30 hours per week, a law adopted in the name of defining

proper motherhood/parenthood.

Our empirical examples were meant to nuance the oversimplistic duality of voluntary vs.

involuntary part-time work. The share of involuntary part-time workers is regarded as a

central indicator of the status of flexible employment in a country, leaving from the

assumption that involuntary part-timers are more vulnerable and are characterised by more

precarious career patterns. Statistics based on surveys (like Labour Force Survey) generally

use the categorisation presented above, including all those who choose part-time work as

students, mothers (parents) or as carers for other family members into the group of voluntary

part-timers. The Netherlands is considered by many authors (e.g. Visser 2002) as a best

practice of keeping the share of involuntary part-time employees lower than in other countries

with comparable part-time rates, whereas the author herself describes how the lack of

adequate and sufficient day care opportunities were an important factor pushing women

toward part-time work. The meanings and individual interpretations reveal, however, a much

more complex interplay of cultural, institutional and practice related constraints in

determining availability to part-time work.

3.5. Time!allocation!as!a!proxy!of!employee!commitment!

The use of time and the subordination of employees’ personal needs to that of the company in

terms of time allocation is one of the means and mechanisms of disciplining workers. As we

have seen in the previous section temporal flexibility when requested by the employee is

considered to be by most actors of the working place as a negotiation of the employee

discipline. The present section is dedicated to understanding the different meanings that are

being attributed to time in the context of part-time employment.

The length of working time

Although no clear cut and univocal rule can be established for the character of part-time work

depending on the length of working time, the differentiation between shorter and longer

working hours signifies different statuses of part-time workers. The boundary is

84""

approximately along the 6-hours working day line. Jenkins (2004) distinguished between

marginal, half-time and reduced hours part-time work. Among our interviewees working less

than 4 or 6 hours per day accounts for marginal and precarious career pattern:

“At the beginning I’ve worked for 6 hours. In the meanwhile I was caring for

my grandmother, because my mother had died, so I was only able to work in

the afternoons. After a while I was doing the cleaning in two places, that made

up 8 hours per day, then I had only a half job at L. [the name of the cleaning

company - GR]. That lasted for 2 years. Due to the crisis the company had to

reduce my working hours, because they lost important contracts with clients.

They offered me a 3-hours job, but I told them, it wasn’t worth it. 2 hours at

one company, 3 at another, that was just complicating things. Now I’m taking

some rest, not working, because it was difficult to work at two companies. I

should find something before retirement.” (54 years, secondary graduate, Cluj)

In white collar jobs many employees and several employers have argued that 4-hours

jobs are in fact completely irreconcilable with the general organisation of administrative

work, therefore only routine jobs can be adjusted to part-time requirements. On the other hand

6 or 7-hours working days are conceived as full-time arrangements where the slightly lower

wage provides the employee the possibility of leaving at certain fixed points. Reduced hours

working time arrangements are the trade-off solutions for higher level white collar

professionals working full-time but benefitting from the prerogative of organising time more

flexibly. In many cases these arrangements are coupled with home working possibilities. 6-7-

hours working days are transitory and are in almost all cases reserved to very high skilled

professionals.

“Nobody is asking me when I do my job. I have a laptop that I can bring

home. Also I can access my mailbox from home. Most of my duties are the

same with what I was working before, nothing has changed. Still, I’m very

thankful for this opportunity to work 7 hours per day, because in this way I

can be sure that I can leave at 4-o’clock, nobody says a word. And it is

important to me to be able to get the girls from the day-care at 4.15.” (33

years, financial professional, MNC, Cluj)

85""

Different uses of time as motivation proxy

Our study of part-time work practices has offered us a good opportunity to look into the

meaning of time as negotiated by different actors of the employment relations. The daily

amount of time dedicated to productive work, as well as the flexibility with which employees

make themselves available for carrying out the job are both considered to be indicative of the

level of motivation and engagement with which the person approaches his or her work and

employer. The only attempt to outweigh the importance of time belongs to working mothers

who strive to emphasise the higher level of efficiency with which they dedicate their shorter

working hours to reaching the goals of their organisation. However, they do not seem to be

successful to negotiate this imposed, but at the end largely shared definition of time and

flexibility as a proxy for work commitment. Working mothers’ situation is specifically

aggravated by the patriarchal division of labour and the lack as well as rigidity of child caring

institutions that lay all the responsibility of children and that of the household on women.

The most important reason of the equivalence between time length and motivation is the

neo-liberal definition of the obeying and self-disciplined worker always available for work

(Petrovici 2010). Nevertheless, the reduction of full-time (plus overtime) to part-time is not

the only difference accounting for a perceived lower level of motivation. Several other time-

consumption related decisions are taken based on the equation of time allocation with

commitment.

Availability for overtime both among full-time and part-time employees as an attempt to

assist the employer in covering for fluctuations in demand or business fluctuations is one

mechanism of using time for demonstrating commitment:

“Nobody cares when I do my job, it just needs to be done. But I can’t expect

for my bosses to settle with me forgetting everything about the hob after 4 pm

as if nothing would happen. Of course things happen after I leave. The other

week I had a deadline on Monday; I had to introduce 500 questions into our

FAQ menu. So I brought the laptop home and worked during the night.

Afterwards my boss told me they would have waited but they appreciated my

commitment” (34 years, university graduate, MNC, Budapest)

86""

The other aspect of negotiating commitment through time allocation is the series of

decisions taken concerning child bearing. Beyond the length of parental leave which is the

primordial means of improving one’s image as dedicated employee, the time span between

children is informing employees of workers’ attachment to the labour market. However in this

respect patterns are not unambiguous. What most respondents agree upon is that

discontinuous careers are a serious disadvantage in preserving or improving one’s position in

the same organisation or when trying to find a new job. HR-specialists have developed an

entire series of strategies tackling at the level of CV-writing the ‘gaps’ in one’s career due to

maternal leave. On the other hand the timing of children within a family’s planning is not a

mere question of private life management but it’s relevance for conveying a meaning about

the woman’s work- or family centeredness is recognised. However, decisions to work

between bearing the children or the mere decision to have many or just one child (or none) is

embedded into social level negotiations of time use as commitment to work. Some

interviewees argued that having the children ‘shortly’ one after another improves the

woman’s chance of not losing the contact with the organisation, while others advised fellow

women to allow for longer ‘spaces’ between the children in order to be able to return even for

a limited amount of time to work. For us, these dilemmas are especially talkative for the

definition of childbearing time and timing as an indicator of commitment to work.

3.6. Conclusions!

The present paper was dedicated to exploring some of the social meanings attributed to part-

time employment in the two countries involved in the research. The primary aim of the

qualitative study was to reveal those aspects of flexible time arrangements that are not

covered by the survey and to understand the representation of this rather rare form of

employment among those who are or have been affected in the past. The reason for limiting

the selection of interviewees to women was that in both countries policy and economic

discourses regard part-time work as a desirable means of improving female employment and

fertility behaviour. The paper was divided into three main parts. The first one presented the

social representations and practices built around two ideal typical instances of part-time work:

working mothers with very young children and part-time work as a secondary status

(including students and pensioners). These two types made it possible for our analysis to

uncover the contexts, advantages and disadvantages surrounding part-time working practices.

87""

The second section offered a more nuanced account of the statistical and thus oversimplifying

typology of voluntary vs. involuntary part-time work. Lastly, the third section revealed how

the meanings of working time shape part-timer positions and a wide range of family and

career related decisions.

4. Concluding!remarks!

The initial idea of the research was originated from our personal interest in the lack or low

level of popularity of part-time work in Central and Eastern Europe. While most European

policy papers urge for the flexibilisation of the labour market along with improving

employees’ security, economic and policy opinion leaders both in Hungary and Romania

regard the lack of part-time work as one of the key factors hindering the improvement of

female employment rates. Many authors analysing American and European flexible working

arrangements warn about the high overlap between part-time work and labour precarity. In

Eastern Europe there has been no mentioning about threats and pitfalls of part-time labour,

except perhaps for the low wage levels. Low income is not, however, the single reason behind

not or not sufficiently widespread part-time work. While many authors have been puzzled by

employers’ reservation to rely more heavily on part-time employment, this issue was out of

the scope of the present thesis.

Rather its main endeavour was firstly to embed the statistical description and the micro-

level understanding of part-time working practices in the international conceptual and

theoretical framework of gender and work and labour market flexibilisation. Secondly, it

attempted to describe the emergence of part-time work in several segments and sectors of the

two labour markets selected, complementing the statistical level analysis with the social and

economic factors contributing to higher likelihood of part-time work. Thirdly, through the 45

interviews carried out with women affected by part-time work and experts, as well as

employers we meant to uncover the social meanings attributed to time flexibility. The goal of

the qualitative study – as always in the sociological research practice – was to deepen and

complement the survey analysis.

The central hypothesis of the statistical analysis was that the properties of part-time

employment in the two countries do not point toward convergence with the European pattern

88""

of work flexibilisation. The hypothesis was confirmed only for Romania. In opposition with

Hungary Romanian part-time rates are and have been higher for the past two decades;

however the increasing share of part-timers within total employment does not reflect any

flexibilisation of the employment relations. On the contrary, higher part-time rates are

strongly related to the heavy reliance of the Romanian economy on the agricultural sector.

While a significant segment of agricultural producers relies on subsistence farming out of

necessity, having no other viable solutions, those who chose part-time agricultural activity as

their main labour market status (making up around one third of the total Romanian agrarian

sector) may be considered the lowest status group, bearing the highest risks of poverty.

Women outnumber men among agrarian part-timers and the majority of both sexes is made up

of active age workers aged 40 and above. The other age group overrepresented compared to

agrarian full-time workers is that of the very young workers between 15 and 24. This

coincides with the trend of the Romanian young’s growing reliance on agrarian employment

in the past years. Lastly, the Romanian specificity of part-time work is that it fully consists of

self-employment and family work. In Hungary, although rates are lower, part-time work

exhibits several similar traits with the general European pattern. The age, gender and

educational structure of the part-time working population reproduce the European trend:

mostly low skilled older women are hired on a part-time basis. In contrast to Romania where

part-time employment might be considered employee-led in Hungary employers’ needs for

flexible solutions of labour allocation are crucial for determining the pace and character of the

spread of part-time work. While the sectorial structure of flexible working arrangements

reflects the general trends of concentrating in sales and services, the function of part-time

work is different from the European use: unlike the latter Hungarian employers do not use it

as a means of matching labour force to fluctuations in demand and business hours. In spite of

the dissimilarities what links the two forms of Romanian part-time self-employment to the

Hungarian pattern of part-time work is workers high risk to marginalisation and labour market

precariousness. In both countries temporary worker status is one of the strongest explaining

factor of part-time work.

Semi-structured interviews carried out with former and present part-time working women

revealed the social meanings attributed to part-time employment. One of the outcomes of the

qualitative study was the rethinking of the statistical level conceptual duality of involuntary

and voluntary part-time employment, showing through interview evidence how a series of

constraints – institutional and cultural – are concealed by survey definitions. The concept and

the share of involuntary part-time employment is crucial in the evaluation of labour market

89""

statuses emerging from flexible arrangements, as involuntary atypical employment is

associated with higher vulnerability to marginalisation. Secondly, we explored the most

significant type of part-time work, the one related to the early years of maternity. We focused

on the motivations and consequences of part-time work especially in terms of career patterns,

working place relations and future career advancement possibilities. Our main conclusion was

that while most working mothers defined their part-time job in terms of an exceptional

opportunity granting them the very possibility to work, they recognise the drawbacks and

disadvantages associated with this form of employment. Nevertheless, as part-time jobs

provide the best conditions of preserving their primary care taker and secondary earner roles,

they are willing to regard it in terms of a trade-off designed to transitorily serve their

traditional gender role ideals. Lastly, the interviews revealed the multiple instances in which

time is conceived of as a means of self-disciplining as obedient employees. The choice for the

length for working hours and that of maternal leave, permanent availability for carrying out

work and decisions regarding the timing of child bearing are all regarded as conveying a

meaning to the employer of the employees’ dedication to work. Shorter working hours, higher

control of one’s working schedule and longer periods dedicated to exclusive child caring all

are endowed with the meaning of family- instead of work-centred female attitudes. While

part-time work is not suitable for challenging traditional sexual division of labour it may

under particular circumstances improve women’s access to paid labour in the first years of

their children’s lives.

5. References!

EUROSTAT The Life of Women and Men in Europe. A Statistical Portrait. EUROSTAT

Statistical Books, 2008.

Romanian Statistical Institute INSSE Tempo Online Programme (www.insse.ro)

Romanian Statistical Institute Romanian Statistical Yearbook 2007.

ILO Employment Database (http://laborsta.ilo.org)

INS 2008 Anuarul Statistic al Romaniei 2007

Blaskó, Zs. (2006). Nők és férfiak – keresőmunka, házimunka. A „család” tematikájú ISSP

2002-es adatfelvétel elemzése (Women and Men – Paid Work, Housework. The Analysis

90""

of the ISSP 2002 “Family”-Survey). Hungarian Central Statistical Office – Demographic

Research Institute Working Papers 82, Budapest.

Blaskó, Zs. (2010). Meddig maradjon otthon az anya? – A gyermekfejlődés szempontjai.

Kutatási tapasztalatok és családpolitikai következtetések (For how long should the mother

stay at home? – From the perspective of the child’s development. Research experiences

and family policy implications). Esély 2010/3, 89–116.

Brown, J.D., John S.E., Gimpelson, V., Kapeliushnikov, R. et al. (2006). Nonstandard Forms

and Measures of Employment and Unemployment in Transition: A Comparative Study of

Estonia, Romania, and Russia. Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 06-127. Kalamazoo,

MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

(http://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/127) last retrieved: February 28, 2013

Bukodi, E. (2005). Női munkavállalás és munkaidő-felhasználás (Women’s Labour and Time

Use) In: I. Nagy, T. Pongrácz, I.Gy. Tóth (Eds.): Szerepváltozások. Jelentés a nők és

férfiak helyzetéről 2005 (Changing Roles. Report on Women’s Situation 2005) (pp. 15–43.)

TÁRKI – Ministry of Youth, Family and Equal Opportunity Affairs, Budapest

del Boca, D. (2002). The effect of child care and part-time opportunities on participation and

fertility decisions in Italy. Journal of Population Economics. 15. 549–573.

Delsen, L. (1998). When do men work part-time? In: J. O’Reilly & C. Fagan (Eds.) Part-Time

Prospects. An international comparison of part-time work in Europe, North America and

the Pacific Rim. (pp. 57–76.) London and New York: Routledge

Doudeijns, M. (1998). Are benefits a disincentive to work part-time? In: J. O’Reilly & C.

Fagan (Eds.) Part-Time Prospects. An international comparison of part-time work in

Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. (pp. 116–136.) London and New York:

Routledge

Drew, E. (1992). The part-time option? Women and part-time work in the European

Community. Women’s Studies International Forum. Vol.15, 607–614.

Esping-Andersen, G. (1990): The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity

Press & Princeton: Princeton University Press

Eurofound Report on Part-Time Work in Europe (2007) (authors: Corral, A. and Isusi, I.)

Fodor, É., Glass, C., Kawachi, J., Popescu, L. (2002). Family policies and gender in Hungary,

Poland, and Romania. Communist and Post-Communist Studies 35. 475–490.

Frey, M. (2009). Nők és férfiak a munkaerőpiacon – a Lisszaboni Növekedési és

Foglalkoztatási Stratégia céljainak a tükrében (Women and Men on the Labour Market –

from the Perspective of the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Employment). In: I. Nagy, T.

91""

Pongrácz (Eds.): Szerepváltozások. Jelentés a nők és férfiak helyzetéről 2009 (Changing

Roles. Report on Women’s Situation 2009). (pp. 27–51.) TÁRKI – Ministry of Social and

Family Affairs, Budapest

Ginn, J. & Arber, S. (1998). How does part-time work lead to low pension income? In: J.

O’Reilly & C. Fagan (Eds.) Part-Time Prospects. An international comparison of part-

time work in Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. (pp. 156–173.) London and New

York: Routledge

Glass, C. & Fodor, É. (2011). Public Maternalism Goes to Market. Recruitment, Hiring, and

Promotion in Postsocialist Hungary. Gender & Society February 2011 vol. 25 no. 1 5–26.

González, M.J., Jurado, T., Naldini, M. (Eds.) (2000). Gender Inequalities in Southern

Europe. Women, Work and Welfare in the 1990s. Frank Cass Publishers

Hakim, C. (1993). The Myth of Rising Female Employment. Work, Employment & Society.

Vol. 7. No.1., 97–120.

Hakim, C. (1996). Key Issues in Women’s Work. Female heterogeneity and the polarization

of women’s employment. The Athlone Press

Hárs, Á. (2012). Atipikus foglalkoztatási formák Magyarországon a kilencvenes és a kétezres

években. Budapesti Munkagazdaságtani Füzetek. Magyar Tudományos Akadémia

Közgazdaság- és Regionális Tudományi Kutatóközpont Közgazdaságtudományi Intézet,

Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem Emberi Erőforrások Tanszék

Harvey, D. (1990). The Condition of Postmodernity. An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural

Change. Blackwell

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/EXTDATAST

ATISTICS/EXTEDSTATS/0,,contentMDK:22572747~pagePK:64168445~piPK:6416830

9~theSitePK:3232764,00.html

Jenkins, S. (2004). Restructuring Flexibility: Case Studies of Part-Time Female Workers in

Six Workplaces. Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 11. No. 3 May 2004, 306–333.

KILM data http://www.ilo.org/empelm/what/WCMS_114240/lang--en/index.htm

Kovách, I. (2012). A vidék az ezredfordulón. A jelenkori magyar vidéki társadalom szerkezeti

és hatalmi változásai (The countryside at the turn of the Millennium. The structural and

power transformations in the current Hungarian countryside). Budapest:MTA

Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpont (Szociológiai Intézet) – Argumentum

Meulders, D., Plasman, O. and Plasman, R. (1996). Atypical Work in the European

Experience. Transfer: European Review of Labour Research 2. 574–601.

92""

Molnar, M. (1999). Sărăcia şi protecţia socială (Poverty and social protection). Bucharest:

„România de mâine” Foundation

Oborni, K. (2009). Imaginary Advantage – Invisible Exploitation. Part-Time Work Positions

at a Corporate Company in Hungary. CEU, MA Thesis, Budapest

Part-Time Work Convention, 1994 [No.175], last retrieved from

http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312320

on: August 02, 2013

Pascall, G. & Lewis, J. (2004). Emerging Gender Regimes and Policies for Gender Equality

in a Wider Europe. Journal of Social Policy. Vol. 33 (July 2004), 379–394.

Petrovici, A. (2010). Transforming Neoliberal Corporate Environments. Human Resources

Perspectives in Postsocialist Cluj. PhD Thesis, Cluj, manuscript (author’s courtesy)

Petrovici, D.A. & Gorton, M. (2005). An evaluation of the importance of subsistence food

production for assessments of poverty and policy targeting: Evidence from Romania. Food

Policy 30 (2005). 205–223.

Pfau-Effinger, B. (1998). Culture or structure as explanations for differences in part-time

work in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands. In: J. O’Reilly & C. Fagan (Eds.) Part-

Time Prospects. An international comparison of part-time work in Europe, North America

and the Pacific Rim. (pp. 177–198.) London and New York: Routledge

Plantenga, J. & Remery, C. (2010). Flexible working time arrangements and gender equality.

A comparative review of 30 European countries. European Commission

Powell, G. (1999). Introduction: Examining the intersection of gender and work. In: G. N.

Powell (Ed.): Handbook of Gender and Work. (pp. ix–1.) Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE

Publications

Rubery, J. (1998). Part-time work: a threat to labour standards? In: J. O’Reilly & C. Fagan

(Eds.) Part-Time Prospects. An international comparison of part-time work in Europe,

North America and the Pacific Rim. (pp. 137–155.) London and New York: Routledge

Ruivo, M., do Pilar González, M. and Varejão, J.M. (1998). Why is part-time work so low

Portugal and Spain? In: J. O’Reilly & C. Fagan (Eds.) Part-Time Prospects. An

international comparison of part-time work in Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim.

(pp. 199–213.) London and New York: Routledge

Smith, M., Fagan, C. & Rubery J. (1998). Where and why is part-time work growing in

Europe? In: J. O’Reilly & C. Fagan (Eds.) Part-Time Prospects. An international

comparison of part-time work in Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. (pp. 35–56.)

London and New York: Routledge

93""

Standing, G. (1999). Global Feminization Through Flexible Labor: A Theme Revisited.

World Development. Vol. 27, No. 3, 583–602.

Tilly, C. (1992). Dualism in part-time employment. Industrial Relations. Vol.31 No.2. 330–

347.

Turnock, D. (1970). The Pattern of Industrialization in Romania. Annals of the Association of

American Geographers, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Sept. 1970), 540–559.

Visser, J. (2002). The first part-time economy in the world: a model to be followed? Journal

of European Social Policy. Vol. 12 (1). 23–42.

Walwei, U. (1998). Are part-time jobs better than no jobs? In: J. O’Reilly & C. Fagan (Eds.)

Part-Time Prospects. An international comparison of part-time work in Europe, North

America and the Pacific Rim. (pp. 96–115.) London and New York: Routledge

Warren, T. & Walters, P. (1998). Appraising a Dichotomy: A Review of ‘Part-Time/Full-

Time’ in the Study of Women’s Employment in Britain. Gender, Work and Organizaton.

Vol. 5 No. 2. Apr. 1998, 102–118.

Webber, G. & Williams, C. (2008). Part-time work and the gender division of labor.

Qualitative Sociology. 31. 15–36.

World Bank 2010 Barro Lee data

"

"

94""

!

Appendices!

Appendix!1!

The evolution of female and male activity rates in the population aged 15–64 between 1997 and 2012 (%)

Hungary Romania Men Women Men Women

1997 66.2 49.3 76.6 63.5 1998 66.6 51.2 75.7 62.3 1999 67.6 52.3 75.2 61.8 2000 67.9 52.7 75.0 61.9 2001 67.2 52.4 73.6 61.1 2002 67.1 52.7 70.4 56.6 2003 67.6 53.9 69.3 55.3 2004 67.2 54.0 70.0 56.2 2005 67.9 55.1 69.4 55.3 2006 68.7 55.5 70.7 56.6 2007 69.0 55.1 70.1 56.0 2008 68.3 55.0 70.6 55.2 2009 68.2 55.3 70.9 55.4 2010 68.3 56.7 71.5 55.8 2011 68.8 56.8 70.7 56.0 2012 70.5 58.3 72.1 56.4

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

95##

Appendix(2(The evolution of part-time rates in selected European countries with rates below 10 per cent and above 20 per cent in the period between 1983 and 2011 (%)*

Greece Spain Portugal Italy Great Britain Norway Iceland Switzerland Netherlands 25+ 15+ 25+ 16+ 25+ 15+ 25+ 15+ 25+ 15+ 25-74 16-74 25-74 16-74 25+ 15+ 25+ 15+

1983 7.3 7.2 - - - - 8.4 8 - - - - - - - - 19.7 18.5 1984 7 7 - - - - 8.1 7.8 21.3 19.6 - - - - - - - -

1985 5.9 5.9 - - - - 8.2 7.9 21.2 19.7 - - - - - - 20.2 19.5 1986 6.8 6.8 - - 7.9 7.5 8.4 8.1 21.6 20.2 - - - - - - - -

1987 6.4 6.5 4.7 5 8 7.4 8.8 8.5 22.3 20.8 - - - - - - 25.4 26.4 1988 7 7 4.7 5 8.4 7.8 9 8.6 21.7 20.5 - - - - - - 25.8 26.9 1989 6.5 6.6 4.2 4.5 8.6 8 9.5 9 21.5 20.2 20.4 21.8 - - - - 26.1 27.7 1990 6.7 6.7 4.5 4.6 8.2 7.6 9.3 8.9 21.2 20.1 20.3 21.8 - - - - 26.4 28.2 1991 6.9 6.9 4.3 4.4 9.5 8.8 9.5 9 21.2 20.7 20.1 22 20.7 22.2 23.9 22.1 26.7 28.6 1992 7.2 7.2 5 5.3 9.4 8.8 10.5 10 21.7 21.5 20 22.1 19.7 22.1 24.8 22.7 24.6 27.3 1993 7.2 7.1 5.5 6 9.5 8.8 10.5 10 22.1 22.1 19.8 22 20.1 22.4 24.8 23.2 25.3 27.9 1994 7.8 7.8 5.7 6.4 10 9.5 10.4 10 22.1 22.4 19 21.5 20.1 22.6 24.5 23.2 26.2 28.9 1995 7.8 7.8 6.3 7 9.2 8.6 10.8 10.5 21.7 22.3 19 21.4 19.7 22.5 24.2 22.9 26.3 29.4 1996 8 8 6.8 7.5 9.7 9.2 10.8 10.5 22 22.9 18.9 21.6 17.5 20.9 24.9 23.7 26.3 29.3 1997 8.3 8.3 7.1 7.9 10.8 10.2 11.5 11.3 21.8 22.9 18.2 21 18.4 22.4 25.3 24 26 29.1 1998 9.1 9.1 6.9 7.7 10.6 10 11.4 11.2 21.7 23 17.9 20.8 19.1 23.2 25.2 24.2 26 30 1999 7.9 8 7.1 7.8 9.9 9.4 12 11.8 21.6 22.9 17.8 20.7 17.3 21.2 25.5 24.8 26.7 30.4 2000 5.3 5.5 7 7.7 10 9.4 12.4 12.2 21.6 23 17.2 20.2 16.3 20.4 25.3 24.4 28.1 32.1 2001 4.8 4.9 7.1 7.8 9.8 9.2 12.4 12.2 21.1 22.7 17 20.1 15.8 20.4 25.6 24.8 29 33 2002 5.4 5.4 7 7.6 10.1 9.6 11.8 11.6 21.8 23.2 17.4 20.6 15.1 20.1 26 24.8 29.9 33.9 2003 5.6 5.6 7.2 7.8 10.2 9.9 11.9 11.7 21.9 23.5 17.5 21 12.9 16 26.3 25.1 30.4 34.5 2004 5.8 5.9 7.7 8.4 9.9 9.6 14.7 14.7 22 23.6 17.4 21.1 13.4 16.6 26 24.9 30.9 35

96##

2005 6.2 6.4 10 11 9.7 9.4 14.6 14.6 21.4 23 17.2 20.8 12.6 16.4 26.3 25.1 31.2 35.6 2006 7.1 7.4 9.9 10.8 9.5 9.3 14.9 15 21.5 23.2 17 21.1 12.2 16 26.6 25.5 30.9 35.4 2007 7.5 7.7 9.8 10.7 10 9.9 15.1 15.2 21.4 22.9 16.5 20.4 11.9 15.9 26.4 25.4 31.1 35.9 2008 7.7 7.9 10.1 11.1 9.8 9.7 15.7 15.9 21.4 23 15.9 20.3 11.2 15.1 26.8 25.9 31.2 36.1 2009 8.2 8.4 10.9 11.9 9.6 9.6 15.6 15.8 22.2 23.9 16.1 20.4 12.9 17.5 27.4 26.5 31.6 36.7 2010 8.5 8.8 11.3 12.4 9.2 9.3 16 16.3 22.7 24.6 15.7 20.1 13.5 18.4 27.4 26.1 32.2 37.1 2011 8.7 9 11.8 12.9 11.2 11.5 16.4 16.7 22.9 24.6 15.6 20 12 17 27.1 25.9 32 37.2

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

97##

Appendix(3(#

Trends in the GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP) in selected Eastern and Central European post-socialist countries 1989–2011

Czech

Republic Hungary Poland Slovakia Slovenia Bulgaria Romania 1989 - 8,825 - 7,653 - 5,624 5,302 1990 12,314 8,931 5,967 7,697 11,509 5,402 5,186 1991 11,297 8,137 5,725 6,793 10,850 5,165 4,711 1992 11,495 8,078 5,990 6,468 10,516 4,943 4,425 1993 11,742 8,217 6,334 7,133 11,079 5,016 4,597 1994 12,332 8,648 6,794 7,704 11,927 5,229 4,884 1995 13,379 8,971 7,407 8,299 13,000 5,528 5,366 1996 14,273 9,287 8,047 9,027 13,820 4,639 5,724 1997 14,377 9,924 8,780 9,736 14,830 4,855 5,500 1998 14,413 10,631 9,371 10,320 15,688 5,467 5,338 1999 14,780 11,059 9,895 10,406 16,713 5,665 5,341 2000 15,546 11,882 10,514 11,006 17,556 6,225 5,662 2001 16,819 13,399 10,953 12,074 18,443 6,760 6,419 2002 17,571 14,669 11,563 12,965 19,763 7,580 7,013 2003 18,765 15,349 11,987 13,604 20,529 8,213 7,681 2004 20,063 16,188 13,009 14,653 22,270 8,870 8,731 2005 21,264 16,975 13,784 16,175 23,476 9,809 9,361 2006 23,231 18,275 15,053 18,357 25,423 11,063 11,118 2007 25,415 18,923 16,748 20,862 27,213 12,344 12,665 2008 25,885 20,432 18,019 23,210 29,074 13,916 14,670 2009 25,645 20,249 18,795 22,546 26,715 13,617 14,355 2010 25,358 20,734 20,033 23,149 26,509 13,892 14,526 2011 26,208 21,663 21,261 23,910 26,954 14,825 15,139

Source: TransMonee project based on data provided by the World Bank, World Development Indicators Database

#

#

98##

(

Appendix(4(

The occupational structure of full-time and part-time employment in Romania and Hungary, 2011, all age groups (%)

Romania Romania without agriculture

Hungary

Full-time

Part-time Total

Full-time

Part-time

Total Full-time

Part-time

Total

Men Managers 2.9 0.4 2.7 3.6 1.9 3.5 6.5 3.1 6.4

Professionals 11.9 1.2 10.8 14.7 4.7 14.4 13.9 12.2 13.8

Technicians and associate professionals

6.6 0.8 6.0 8.3 3.7 8.2 10.2 8.2 10.1

Clerical support workers

2.7 0.2 2.4 3.5 .9 3.4 3.2 4.1 3.2

Service and sales workers

10.0 1.2 9.1 12.6 5.6 12.4 12.0 16.3 12.2

Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers

18.3 52.5 21.6 0.2 0.0 0.2 3.6 6.1 3.7

Craft and related trade workers

23.9 8.7 22.4 30.3 38.3 30.5 26.0 17.3 25.6

Plant and machine operators and assemblers

15.8 1.9 14.4 19.4 7.5 19.0 17.6 11.2 17.3

Elementary occupations

7.9 33.1 10.4 7.4 37.4 8.3 6.9 21.4 7.6

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Women Managers 1.6 0.2 1.5 2.1 2.1 2.1 5.3 1.9 5.0

Professionals 20.2 0.8 18.0 25.9 8.5 25.6 19.0 11.8 18.3

Technicians and associate professionals

8.7 1.3 7.8 11.0 12.8 11.0 19.6 11.8 18.9

Clerical support workers

7.1 0.6 6.4 9.1 6.4 9.1 13.6 12.4 13.5

Service and sales workers

19.4 2.3 17.4 25.0 23.4 25.0 19.4 25.5 19.9

Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers

20.1 64.1 25.2 0.1 0.0 0.1 1.8 1.9 1.8

Craft and related trade workers

8.5 0.4 7.6 10.9 4.3 10.8 3.1 3.7 3.1

Plant and machine operators and assemblers

6.1 0.2 5.4 7.8 0.0 7.7 9.7 6.2 9.4

Elementary occupations

8.3 30.0 10.8 8.1 42.6 8.7 8.6 24.8 10.1

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Total

99##

Managers 2.3 0.3 2.1 2.9 1.9 2.9 6.0 2.3 5.7

Professionals 15.6 1.0 14.1 19.7 5.8 19.4 16.2 12.0 15.9

Technicians and associate professionals

7.5 1.0 6.9 9.5 6.5 9.5 14.5 10.4 14.2

Clerical support workers

4.7 0.4 4.2 6.0 2.6 5.9 7.9 9.3 8.0

Service and sales workers

14.2 1.8 12.9 18.2 11.0 18.0 15.3 22.0 15.8

Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers

19.1 58.2 23.2 0.2 0.0 0.2 2.8 3.5 2.8

Craft and related trade workers

17.0 4.6 15.7 21.6 27.9 21.8 15.7 8.9 15.2

Plant and machine operators and assemblers

11.4 1.0 10.3 14.2 5.2 14.0 14.0 8.1 13.6

Elementary occupations

8.1 31.5 10.6 7.7 39.0 8.5 7.6 23.6 8.7

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey#

100##

(

Appendix(5(

The educational structure of full-time and part-time employment in Romania and Hungary, all age groups, 2011 (%)

Romania Romania without agriculture Hungary Full-time Part-time Total Full-time Part-time Total Full-time Part-time Total

Men Primary or less 18 50.3 21.1 8.5 39.3 9.4 10 23.2 10.6 Vocational school 30.3 33.4 30.6 30 33.6 30.1 37.2 32.3 37 Gymnasium 30.6 13.3 29 35.4 20.6 35 28.5 27.3 28.4 Tertiary 21.2 2.9 19.4 26.2 6.5 25.5 24.3 17.1 23.9 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Women Primary or less 21.2 62.1 25.9 7.8 25.5 8.1 10.6 20.1 11.4 Vocational school 17.7 20.7 18 17.9 23.4 18 19.4 27 20.1 Gymnasium 34 13.9 31.7 39.9 27.7 39.7 36.8 32.1 36.4 Tertiary 27.2 3.3 24.3 34.4 23.3 34.2 33.1 20.8 32 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Total Primary or less 19.5 56.2 23.3 8.2 35 8.9 10.3 21.4 11.1 Vocational school 24.7 27.1 24.9 24.6 30.5 24.8 29.2 29.1 29.2 Gymnasium 32.1 13.6 30.2 37.4 22.7 37 32.2 30.2 32.1 Tertiary 23.8 3.1 21.6 29.8 11.6 29.5 28.3 19.4 27.7 Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Source: EUROSTAT Labour Force Survey

101##

#

Appendix(3( Interview guide

1. Introductory question: what does (did) it mean to you to work as a part-timer? 2. Please tell me the story of your professional life, starting with the very first job

you ever had, whether it was full or part-time, formal or informal. Focal points: Education, occupation(s) Jobs in chronological order: when she commenced the job, when did it end, for how long was she an unemployed. At each job change: - why did she leave? - how did she search for a new job? What did she find? What did she apply for? Please give details about the following, concerning each job: - program/schedule - duties - wage level - advantages, motivating factors - disadvantages - colleagues, superiors 3. Partner(s) Give details about him/them How did you meet? Education, occupation(s) Who earned more? Were there periods when this was different? Domestic duties and decision making.

4. Children How many? When were they born? Maternal leave: duration, decisions? Did she receive any help from the family or friends? What kind of help? Did you bring your children to day care? What do you think of this decision today? Babysitter? What do you think of this decision today?

5. Working part-time Why did you work part-time? Advantages/disadvantages? - how widespread was that in that particular firm: who, since when, whose decision was it, the employer’s supposed motivation - who applied for such arrangements and why, in her opinion? - how did you ask for it? was it offered? the process of negotiation - what was your colleagues’ attitude? - position, responsibility, previous positions - time management - any possibilities of upward mobility? - financial aspects? wage? - holidays, days off, social security and pension

102##

6. Back to the labour market

- to what employers? under what conditions: wage, schedule, duties, level of responsibility#

#