We present results from our 단기알바 analysis showing that mothers working a part-time position are more likely than their full-time colleagues to work a job that has less flexibility, lower wages, and less access to family-friendly benefits. We then discuss the effects of being a mother on working hours and access to family-friendly benefits for working mothers.
So far, we have established that part-time jobs are concentrated in lower-paying jobs that offer little benefit.40 We also established that mothers aged 25-54 are more likely than women without children to be working part-time. Model 2 shows how the effects of PTW differ by number and age of children in the household.18 In fact, PTW contributes to the employment of women only if they have a child younger than 5 years old, or when there are two children (regardless of age) in the household.19 The patterns of PTW effects are quite different in Mediterranean countries.
Differences in the types of occupations held by mothers employed as part-time and full-time workers could have significantly contributed to differences in the availability of job benefits and flexibility. As is true for women, many men employed part-time were underemployed, stuck in jobs that did not offer wages, benefits, or opportunities comparable with those offered by full-time employment.
A significant number of women provide for themselves and their families while working in low-wage jobs. While men experience many of the same obstacles women do–poor employment choices, lower wages, limited benefits–they typically take such jobs because there is no available full-time employment. Still others are working part-time because their employers, especially those in low-wage service industries, seldom offer positions at all, and some employees – especially women – find caregiving responsibilities or other obligations prohibit working full-time.
By contrast, just one-third of all full-time women workers are employed in those same industries, suggesting these jobs are not a major career choice. Fifteen percent are single parents, 63% are in their prime working years, and 57% are employed full-time, year-round, suggesting work is not an afterthought. These women are employed at least half the time, and they are not living with a prospective caretaker in their household–another adult who is not employed or is employed less than half the time.
Womens lower earnings are partly related to the central role that they have played caring for family. Although black women frequently do important jobs within the economy, they are rarely treated with the dignity such jobs deserve.27 At the same time, they provide critical financial support on which their families depend for survival.
These challenges are particularly difficult for many women of color, who are more likely to work jobs that pay lower wages, offer few benefits, and offer fewer access to childcare, navigating the combined effects of racial, ethnic, and gender bias. The main employment challenges facing pregnant women include pregnancy-related discrimination, employment accommodations that enable continued employment, employment-protected leaves, and replacement wages during leaves.
The U.S. is the only developed nation that does not have national paid maternity or parental leave programs, leaving many pregnant women and their families without employment protections, health coverage benefits, or wages during an uncertain period. Women are generally expected to return to work, or face losing their jobs, once they use their medical leave. If a pregnant woman cannot work due to health reasons, she, her partner, or both, can receive job-protected partially paid or unpaid leave.
If it is feasible and medically appropriate, a pregnancy accommodation allowing the woman to remain in the workforce is the best job-protected option. An accommodation that allows a woman to keep working is the surest way to ensure payment, benefits, and employment protection.
In states without extra protections, working for as long as possible while pregnant allows more time off after childbirth and enables continuing earnings, both of which are important to many women. Workers who are employed part-time also can have difficulties in balancing their job and their personal lives because of potentially higher job-schedule variability. In this light, it is important to provide equal treatment to workers who are employed part-time, facilitate the transition between part-time and full-time employment, guarantee workers at least the guaranteed hours, and allow them to have input into their schedules, including by restricting the variability in their hours.
In some cases, working arrangements may include very short hours or lack predictable fixed hours, and employers are not required to ensure that they are provided a fixed number of hours. Some of this flexibility may stem from part-time workers being more likely to be employed at jobs with irregular hours and with last-minute scheduling.52 Mothers might be able to take on shifts when they are available; some of the scheduling changes, however, may not have been voluntary.53 One-fifth of part-time workers (21.7%) had less than one weeks advance notice for a schedule, compared to 9.7% of their full-time peers.
First, because part-time work is generally associated with lower wages and worse job prospects, it necessarily reinforces the sex-based segmentation of the labor force, and a sex-based separation of paid and unpaid labor, thus confining women into the role of secondary earners.
In addition to making jobs more available for mothers, the labour market must more fairly compensate women for their labor. Other policies that can boost female labor force participation, narrow wage gaps, and make jobs more available for mothers include policies that encourage or finance predictable scheduling, guaranteed hours, and expanded pre- or after-school programs. Instead, we should be targeting higher goals–an economy that fairly rewards women for their labor, increases job accessibility with family-friendly policies, and supports women in the roles they choose–breadwinners, mothers, or some combination thereof.
Womens careers could also be affected if schools and childcare centers are not fully restored, Vanberg says, given the fact that the burdens of household work and childcare fall disproportionately on women.
Our primary independent variable (% of females in part-time jobs) is the share of females employed in a dependent occupation in a dependent occupation as a share of the overall employment of females aged 15-64, measured regionally in each year.8 This PTW measure accounts for regionally and year-specific shares in part-time positions.