Part-time employment of married women in the U.S.A.: a cross-sectional analysis

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The,  Jan, 1996  by Bijou Yang Lester

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Introduction

Part-time work is defined by the Census Bureau as a job of less than 35 hours per week. According to Tilly (1992), part-time work can be classified into three categories: (1) short-time, a common form of part-time employment in the male-dominated manufacturing industries, used more often during a downturn, (2) secondary part-time jobs, characterized by low-skills and high turnover, representing one form of the so-called secondary labor market, and (3) retention part-time jobs, marked by professional skills and low turnover, most often referring to a voluntary arrangement.

Evidence showed that secondary part-time employment is the most common type of part-time work, for almost two-thirds of all part-timers work in the predominantly low-skilled occupations in the areas of clerical, sales and services. However, the demand for part-time and temporary employment has risen so substantially in the last decade (Golden and Applebaum, 1992; duRivage, 1992; Tilly, 1992) that a new concept of part-time work has emerged. The status of part-timers has been transformed accordingly, for it is no longer considered to be a second rate status, especially for those who arrange to work on a voluntary basis. The new notions of part-time work include (1) work sharing, (2) voluntarily reduced working hours, (3) job sharing and (4) phased retirement (Axel, 1988).

In 1992, more than 21 million workers were part-timers and accounted for 17.4 percent of the total employment. The corresponding percentage of part-timers in 1980 was 16.9 percent. Between 1980 and 1992, the U.S. economy created more than 18 million jobs, and 21 percent of these new jobs were part-time work. Apparently, jobs with a part-time schedule were created at a faster rate than were jobs with a full-time schedule in that period.(1)

What is more striking is that involuntary part-time employment comprised 40 percent of new part-time jobs (Applebaum, 1992). Part-time workers are considered involuntary if workers get their jobs due to "slack work, plant downtime, starting or ending their work during the week they are surveyed, or inability to find a job" (Tilly, 1992, 43). Forty percent of new part-time jobs created in 1992 meant 1.5 million workers were working involuntarily on a part-time basis while preferring a full-time job.

This alarming trend deserves attention especially in light of the fact that the increase in the rate of part-time jobs seems to be stronger regarding males and teenagers. Table 1 presents the part-time/full-time employment ratios for 1980 and 1992 for males, females, male teenagers, and female teenagers. First, it appears that only females experienced a drop in the ratio in 1992. The drop in the female group should not be used as an excuse for not paying attention to this topic, for the ratio itself remains more than two-and-a-half times higher than the ratio for males. Secondly, the ratio for both male and female teenagers signifies that for them the normal mode of working is part-time rather than full-time. Thirdly, the dramatic increase in the ratio for these teenagers seems to imply that full-time jobs for teenagers, particularly for female teenagers, are vanishing quickly.

Table 1

Since women have been major providers of part-time work and since the number of women on part-time schedule has grown enormously over the last few decades (Kornbluh, 1988),(6) it is quite hard to dismiss the role of the female labor force participation rate, which has been growing concurrently over the period, unless the two variables move in different directions. In fact, the female labor force participation rate peaked in 1990. The implication is that the influx of women was slowing down during the 1980s. This paper attempts to challenge the idea that the female labor force participation rate was not one of the factors causing the rise of part-time employment of married women in the last couple of decades. The paper also attempts to disconfirm the contribution of the growth in service sector to the increase of part-time employment of married women.

Secondly, this paper attempts further to examine the intriguing phenomenon found in empirical studies that time-series and cross-sectional analyses often end up with somewhat different conclusions. A cross-sectional study of the 48 continental states was therefore undertaken. The year 1980 was chosen because some of the variables used in the study are not yet available for 1990. (However, hypothesis testing for 1990 is part of the research planned for the future.)

Married women were the focus of this paper because a majority of the female labor force is married. In addition, the trend seems to indicate that an increasing number of married women have chosen to share the financial responsibility with their husbands in the last three decades. It is especially well documented that the growth of part-time employment has coincided with the increase of dual-earner families (Tilly, 1992).

During the period of 1960-1991, married women accounted for more than half of female population in the US (ranging from 54% to 59% [Census Bureau, 1992, No. 619, 387]). The ratio of married to single women has remained two to one. If we calculate the female labor force participation rate using female population as a denominator, the overall/total rate (ranging from 38% to 58%) witnessed a steady increase up to 1990 (58%) and started to decline in 1991. For the single, the rate fluctuated between 55% and 68%, and it peaked in 1989, while for the married the trend was steadfastly rising from a rate of 32% to 59% during the period, with the rate of increase gradually slowing down in the second half of the 1980s (Census Bureau, 1992, No. 619, 387).