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In this second of a series of articles dealing with aspects of wage payment and employment in retail distribution, the authors turn their attention to the question of part‐time workers. These have increased substantially in recent years: for women only the proportion of part‐time employment rose from 31% in 1957 to 43% in 1966. The research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council.

For many years, the majority of workers in the industrialised West have shared a similar employment life‐course – one based on full‐time permanent work. However, over the last decade the number of such opportunities have started to decline and many more workers are participating in “non‐standard” forms of employment. Using data from the UK’s Labour Force Survey, and the Canadian General Social Survey, this paper traces the trends in “non‐standard” employment over the 1989 to 1994 period. The findings illustrate that, although the majority of workers are still in full‐time permanent jobs, an increasing proportion are engaged in “non‐standard” employment. The paper suggests that certain groups are more likely to be involved in “non‐standard” employment than others, and that increasingly these tend to be made up of workers at one end or other of the working age spectrum.

Despite the numerical predominance of women in nursing there is a marked concentration of women, especially those working part‐time, in the lower echelons of the profession. The paper presents survey data and interview material from a study of qualified nurses in NHS Wales. By controlling for differences in education and experience in nursing work, it was found that comparable groups of female nurses received unequal employment opportunities. Women with dependent children were primarily located in the lower nurse grades irrespective of their qualifications and experience. Much of this was associated with inflexible working practices, and the low status of part‐time work. Occupational downgrading for female returners was also a significant barrier to career advancement. However, these problems were not recognised by management. Management failed to evaluate the mechanics of their human resource policies in terms which matter to many nurses, in particular with regard to the management of diversity.

Despite the numerical predominance of women in nursing there is a marked concentration of women, especially those working part‐time, in the lower echelons of the profession. The paper presents survey data and interview material from a study of qualified nurses in NHS Wales. By controlling for differences in education and experience in nursing work, it was found that comparable groups of female nurses received unequal employment opportunities. Women with dependent children were primarily located in the lower nurse grades irrespective of their qualifications and experience. Much of this was associated with inflexible working practices, and the low status of part‐time work. Occupational downgrading for female returners was also a significant barrier to career advancement. However, these problems were not recognised by management. Management failed to evaluate the mechanics of their human resource policies in terms which matter to many nurses, in particular with regard to the management of diversity.

Presents a Europe‐wide analysis of employment patterns which reveals three major characteristics of women′s employment: occupational segregation, part‐time working, and pay differentials. Examines how these manifest themselves as a European‐wide phenomenon, and in more detail looks at how they manifest themselves in France, the UK and The Netherlands. Presents data to explore the interrelationship of these three characteristics and their manifestation against national backgrounds of social and employment legislation and child‐care provision. Concludes that simple correlations do not explain women′s position in the workforce and that neither structural nor cultural theories are in themselves enough to understand these complex relationships.

Recent empirical studies have improved methodologies for identifying the causal effects of policies especially on a minimum wage hike. This study identifies causal effects of minimum wage hikes across 47 prefectures in Japan from 2008 to 2010 on employment, average hourly wage, work hours, full-time equivalent employment (FTE), total wage costs, average tenure, separation and new hiring in establishments using a micro dataset of business establishments in restaurant, accommodation, and food takeout and delivery industry. Various regression specifications including controls for time-varying regional heterogeneity are implemented by using the bite of the minimum wage in each establishment. First, this study finds that the effects of a revision of minimum wage on employment and FTE in the establishment are statistically insignificant, but the effects on hourly wages and total wage costs are statistically significant. Subsequently, it considers how the establishments react to the increase in total wage costs caused by the revised minimum wage, and finds that separation from the establishment may decrease, and average tenure of workers may increase.

While there is a general awareness that the proportion of women in the workforce is gradually rising, some of the features of this increase in female employment are less well understood. For example, between 1951 and 1971 the proportion of women workers in the labour force rose from 34.7 to 43.0 per cent. However, this increase masks an important change in the composition of the female workforce. In the same period the percentage of married women in the female workforce rose from 38.2 to 63.1 per cent. This growth of married women within the workforce has been paralleled by a growth in part‐time work. In fact, since the early 1960s most of the increase in the number of women entering employment has been due to a growth in part‐time rather than full‐time employees.

Self-employment is often viewed as a more desirable work arrangement than working as an employee for a firm. Women are pushed into self-employment due to organizational factors, such as a shrinking workforce or limited job opportunities, while being attracted to self-employment by the many psychological and social benefits (e.g., independence, flexibility, work-life balance, job satisfaction). Despite more women moving into self-employment, this type of employment still has different financial consequences for men and women. This article investigates whether a pay gap exists for self-employed women after controlling for industry, occupation, and hours worked and seeks to quantify the gender wage gap for the self-employed. A sample of 467 self-employed independent contractors in the United States was examined from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce. The results indicate a large financial disparity between self-employed women and men. On average men earned $54,959 as compared to women who earned on average $28,554. Regardless of the parity in education, work experience, number of hours worked, or occupations, women earn less than men in self-employment. Findings suggest the existence of the glass cage‐a phenomenon whereby self-employed women earn significantly less than self-employed men with limited abilities to narrow the economic inequality.

Decreased regulation of part-time work is one way a country responds to high rates of unemployment. Proponents of deregulation argue that a more flexible labor market is required to allow labor markets to clear. A more traditional response to high unemployment is change in monetary policy, where interest rates are lowered to stimulate the economy and increase rates of employment. Both policies have been tried in Europe, a good place to study the effects of the two policy responses, both because European unemployment has been high and because the trade off between monetary policy and the deregulation of part time work has varied from country to country. The establishment of the European monetary union (EMU) in 1999 created a natural experiment in which any one country’s ability to adjust its monetary policy was curtailed, creating pressure for deregulatory policies to come into play (Aaronovitch & Grahl, 1997; Pisani-Ferry, 1998).

This article considers the reasons why food retailers currently employ predominantly part‐time staff from the employers’ perspective based on both primary and secondary research. It examines the reasons and considers the differences between part‐time and full‐time staff in terms of ratio, equal treatment and capacity in which part‐time staff are employed. The impact of new legislation is briefly reviewed. Lessons from the food retail industry, where flexibility in terms of part‐time staff has been commonplace for many years, can be applied to other sectors and employment practices in general.