Full Time, Part Time, Good Jobs, Bad

Nancy Folbre is professor emerita of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The term “part-time jobs” is beginning to make Americans anxious. Many workers currently in such jobs would strongly prefer â€" and in many cases desperately need â€" more hours of employment to pay their bills. Policy makers worried about implementation of the Affordable Care Act point to features that could make part-time employment more attractive for both employers and workers.

The anxiety is somewhat misdirected. While full-time jobs generally pay better, offer more benefits, and promise more room for advancement than part-time jobs, the quality of a job is not necessarily determined by the average weekly hours put into it.

Nor is it clear that the United States economy as a whole would suffer from an increase in the percentage of part-time jobs â€" as long as those who wanted more full-time employment were able to find it.

Today, as in the past, women are more likely than men to be employed for fewer than 35 hours a week â€" not because they prefer leisure to labor, but because they take considerably more responsibility than men for family care and household work.
As more women have entered the paid labor force, they have reduced their hours of unpaid work, and men have taken on a larger share. But it remains difficult for many two-earner families responsible for young children or other dependents to put in a combined 80 or more hours of paid employment a week and sustain a meaningful family life.

Many women choose to work fewer than 40 hours a week not because they prefer leisure to labor, but because they make family care a priority over earned income. Some men now reduce their hours of paid employment or drop out of the labor force for the same reason.

Last month, about 8.3 million workers were in part-time jobs for “economic reasons” (primarily not being able to find full-time work)  while 19.1 million offered “non-economic reasons” as an explanation (not a very accurate label, since it includes factors like a lack of affordable child care or of a partner willing to share care responsibility).

Both sets of workers might prefer different circumstances, and many women experience lower lifetime income as a result of their choices. But part-time employment itself is not the problem.

To drive this point home, consider the following question. What’s the difference between an economy in which men all work about 40 hours a week for pay, relying on women to stay home and tend to family needs, and an economy in which most men and women work about 30 hours a week for pay, sharing responsibilities for family care?

The second economy enjoys more gender equality, more time for joint participation in family life, and more total hours of paid employment. Why should we view it as less desirable or less efficient than the first?

As Janet Gornick and Marcia Meyers explain their book “Families That Work,” several European countries have implemented policies designed to improve part-time employment â€" and general flexibility in employment hours â€" as part of a larger policy effort to support family commitments.

The policy tools include requirements that part-time jobs be paid at the same hourly rate as comparable full-time jobs in the same establishment, with benefits pro-rated accordingly.

Many countries, including Germany, Britain and the Netherlands, also give full-time workers the right to request part-time work without changing jobs, occupations or employers. Such policies tend to reduce the pay penalty for part-time work.

In the United States, by contrast, the large supply of married women and single mothers seeking part-time employment has made it easy for employers to designate such jobs as low-pay, no-benefit positions.

Drawing sharp lines between primary workers who are employed full time and secondary workers who are employed part-time makes it easier to treat some workers as cheap disposables without undermining the morale of others.

In some sectors of the economy, like retail trade, employers favor part-time contracts because scheduling flexibility allows them to accommodate peak shopping times and keep sales workers “fresher” on the job. Variability and unpredictability in hours â€" which often goes along with short shifts â€" can neutralize any “family-friendly” advantage.

Yes, some part-time jobs are really bad jobs. But that description fits a growing share of full-time jobs as well. The National Employment Law Project points out that job losses in the Great Recession were concentrated in the mid-wage occupations, while most of the jobs added in its aftermath are in low-wage occupations.

The Affordable Care Act will make it possible for more low-wage workers to get the health insurance they and their families need. Under current rules, however, employers will not be required to cover workers employed less than 30 hours a week, who will be eligible for public subsidies.

The extent to which employers will respond to this incentive remains to be seen. But there’s a simple way to address the problem. The United Food and Commercial Workers union is pushing for a Part-Time Worker Bill of Rights that would require employers to pro-rate health insurance benefits for workers employed less than 30 hours a week, and also extend other benefits like eligibility for unpaid family leave. Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, has introduced legislation to this effect in Congress.

The bill could improve the quality of part-time jobs. It could also increase the likelihood that people work part time by choice, rather than by necessity.