Does the fact that most married women work part-time mean they have a low attachment to work?

H Gray

So are women who work part-time less committed to work than their full time colleagues. This essay attempts to argue the importance of predetermined societal expectations of part-time working and the cultural expectations around childcare and the balancing of work-life issues. As we enter the dawn of a new Millennium, women in every walk of life, from a wife to a top Physician, are gaining greater opportunities to compete with their male counterparts. They can exercise the choice to stay home or work for a career. Some women prefer to manage their marital status simultaneously with their career. The capacity of a woman to do well often lies in the perception that she can handle household chores and hold down a job with relative ease. Women who choose to work develop an identity outside of the home, have some independence financially and do not just see themselves as centred on the family. In general, this has been one of the most positive aspects of women working and one the majority of women would seem to want to hold on to. Although many married women decide to stay at home and not work at all, for many married women who work part time the effect of having such a job can be as great as working full time. We know that many women are at home for reasons other than 'choice': they may not be able to find a job, they may be caring for sick relatives, and most commonly they may have childcare responsibilities which prevent them from working outside the home. Despite their short hours, women part-timers are more likely than full time workers to take unpaid time off work for domestic reasons.(RUBERY et al,1994)

Mention part-time working and the idea of freedom, choice and flexibility or reduced working hours come to mind. Although this cannot be true of all part –time work, there may be many part time jobs which only amount to 7 to16 hours a week, but there are equally a great many which involve working only a few hours less than similar full time jobs. Part time work is generally calculated as 30 hours or less a week, which is only five or seven hours less than the typical working week in many clerical jobs. Most discussion of part-time working focuses on the question of time and the matter of money is passed over, but part-time working means part-time wages. In the1990’s, the average workload and work-rate increased significantly, and women's response was to choose part-time work. Between 1971 and 1993, much of the increase in the number of women in paid work can be accounted for by the rise of part-time work, 92% of the total increase in women’s employment was in part-time work. Men working full-time account for 93% and only 9% work part-time, 43% of women work part-time. (EOC) 2003. A greater proportion of women than men are found in low-wage and low status jobs, According to Social Trends 2003, the number of part time workers has increased by almost a third since 1987. Twenty five per cent of employees were working part-time in spring 2002, and 82 per cent of part-time workers were women.(Social Trends 2003, p79) The current labour government used this direction to enforce the positive and flexible nature of part-time working; female politicians glossed over the poorly paid, casual work practices replacing them with “family, friendly “environments. Even with all the equal opportunities legislation there's still exists a two-tier job market in Britain. Many feminists argue that that government policies exploit women and their use of labour, as women’s withdrawal from the labour market to have children is often followed by a pattern of combining part-time paid work with unpaid work.(CROMPTON,1997) .(HAKIM,1996) argues that part-time work is still seen to be the ideal choice for married women and mothers, although all it offers is mundane working conditions, low pay and fewer promotion prospects, merely supporting the family wage. This intense work pressure hits married women with a dual force, by making it harder to juggle a job and children and still have the energy and time for housework. Their male counterparts now work the longest hours in Europe, and that often means that women have no choice but to cut back their work to cover for them. Women's caring is not properly valued; so crucial to the raising of the next generation, to care of the elderly, to social cohesion overall; this has always been ignored and marginalised, whether in the home or the labour market.

“Inevitably, women also choose to spend time out of the job market raising families and do not accumulate as much work experience as men.” ( Emma Clark, BBC News Online business reporter)

It is women's caring responsibilities that cripple their achievements in the labour market. Most women are employed in jobs that have lower status, according to the terms of the capitalist labour market, concentrated in sectors that have always been relatively low paid, such as care work and nursing, and in the service sector. The kind of emotional labour women are required to put into these kinds of jobs ...

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“Inevitably, women also choose to spend time out of the job market raising families and do not accumulate as much work experience as men.” ( Emma Clark, BBC News Online business reporter)

With part-time staff now making up more than a quarter of the workforce, the stood at 27.86m, this is at its highest level since records began in 1984.It seems to reflects changes in social attitudes and the small growth in child care provision, together with greater opportunity for part time work. The amount of married women in part-time employment replicates the lack of support for parents. Although recent government legislation has attempted to address this problem, in 1998, Britain had the lowest level of affordable child care provision in Europe, this promoted the government initiative to ensure that every 4 year old would be offered a nursery place if the parents wanted one. (LA VALLE et al, 2000), With this in mind many women chose to juggle part-time work around their husbands to ease the financial strain of childcare. Where both parents do work, concerns have started to be raised about the long hours and increased workloads which are starting to ‘rip’ into ‘the fabric’ of family life. According to (ONS 2003 ) there has been a more general trend in the economy towards what is called 'non-standard work' which covers part timers and those on short term or fixed contracts. Part of the problem could be that the majority of part-timers are women, and women in general are still accorded lower status in the labour market and throughout society. (McCRAE,2003) A study into women's part-time employment suggested by (HAKIM,1998) is that part-timers and full-timers are qualitatively different types of women with different attitudes to working and home-life whereas VOGLER argues that,

“Part-time employment simply reduces the pressures on the husband’s wage without increasing wives’ influence over finance” (VOGLER,1994b p246)

It has been suggested that married women who work full time do so because they see work as an important part of their self identity. BRADLEY claims that once middle class women are relieved from domestic responsibilities they are in a position to compete with male colleagues and attack vertical segregation yet at the other end of the class spectrum, working class women remain trapped in low-paying, sex-typed jobs struggling to find employment which can be fitted in with household demands (Bradley, 1989). Even when educational achievement has enabled women to pursue high grade managerial and professional careers successfully, these have frequently been in the so-called ‘feminine’ or ‘soft’ sectors such as catering, retailing and health. One argument has suggested that women struggle because society tends to undervalue female skills and male patterns of work are assumed to be the norm. (HAKIM,1998) is critical of this view, claiming, that women inherently make life choices she cites pharmacy as an example of an occupation in which highly educated professional women were free from discrimination. She suggests that, many women choose not to break the so-called "glass ceiling" in order to concentrate on family and relationship commitments,

“Workers who give priority to familial responsibilities will inevitably prefer jobs offering convenience factors over jobs offering high pay and promotion prospects, and they are unlikely to seek management positions which often do not have well-defined limits to responsibilities and working hours” (Hakim,1998)

Women have had to adopt and adapt to male work patterns based on a different set of priorities from men, and that this has more of an impact on their professional attainment than traditional social and financial barriers. HAKIM supports this by saying that less than a fifth of all women are "work-centred" as opposed to "home centred" or combining childcare with part time work. Of those in the work-centred group, only a small number have children, with the majority of mothers choosing to work part time or not at all. (HAKIM,1998) claims that women offer no commitment to the labour market, giving priority instead to the home and family. She claims that the growth in part-time work only reinforces a woman’s own preference for working the hours she desires to fit in with the life she chooses. This perspective reinforces a derogatory discourse that part-time work is not seen to be ‘proper’ work, as it lacks any form of commitment. An argument against HAKIM is that there is no consideration for the constraints that affects women’s decision to work part/time; such as childcare problems, domestic chores and the division of labour as well as the long hours. Although the ‘new man’ helps more than their predecessors did the majority of domestic work is still performed by the wife. Many employers have perceptions of what kind of work is appropriate for women with domestic responsibilities and have found that the restricted job choice of mothers who need hours to fit in with domestic work and child care is a ready source of recruitment for part-time hours.(BEECHEY & PERKINS,1987) It is therefore vital that opportunities are adapted to a women's life -cycle with time-off for child bearing and part-time work while children are dependent.

The value of part-time work and other forms of flexible working needs to be recognised as an important cultural shift that needs to be re-evaluated. The vast majority of part-time workers are women, but in the workplace, part-time/flexible workers are often considered less committed and effective than their full-time colleagues. Many feminists emphasise that women’s choices are constrained and not completely free, they overlook the fact that women have more choices than men, (BONNEY,1988) Women now enjoy shorter periods of employment, numerous job changes as well as having bigger breaks in employment often associated with part-time work; whereas men traditionally leave school, pursue a full time workload and then retire. With that in mind Part-time work is only open to people who have choices. Lack of flexible working arrangements plays a major role in influencing mothers’ decisions to stay at home after having children. Many married women choose to work part-time after having children as it allowed them the opportunity to combine the social and financial benefits of working, with the opportunity to be at home with their children whilst they were young. It could be argued that it is more difficult for married women who are not in work to maintain high levels of work commitment as they have relinquished their personal identity as a worker fulfilling practical and social roles, which enable, or constrain, labour activities. It is clear from literature on the subject that working part-time does not make married women less committed and that it is each woman’s decision, to enter the world of work, be it full time or part-time, and is based on a complex network of social, cultural and economic reasons.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Journals

BONNEY,N. (1988) ‘Dual Economy couples: trends of change in Great Britain’ Work Employment and Society, 2, pp 89-102. SAGE

HAKIM, C. (1995). "Five feminist myths about women's employment." British Journal of Sociology 46(3): 429-453. Sage

MARKS, G. & HOUSTIN, D.M. (2002) Attitudes towards work and motherhood held by working and non-working mothers, Work Employment and Society, 16, 523-536. SAGE

McRAE, S. (2003) Constraints and choices in mother’s employment careers: a consideration of Hakim’s Preference Theory, British Journal of Sociology,Vol No 54, Iss 3 pp317-338

Books

BEECHEY,V. & PERKINS, T.(1987) A matter of hours: Women, part-time work and the labour market. POLITY PRESS

BRADLEY, H (1989) Men’s Work, Women’s Work: CAMBRIDGE. POLITY.

CROMPTON, R.(1997) Women and Work in Modern Britain. OXFORD. OUP

EVITTS,J.(ed)1994 Women and Career Themes and Issues in advanced Industrial Societies: LONDON :Longman

HAKIM, C.(1998) Social Change and Innovations in the Labour Market Oxford: Oxford University Press

HAKIM, C. (1996). Key Issues in women's work: female heterogeneity and the polarisation of women's work. London, Athlone.

MARSHALL, G.,NEWBY,H., ROSE, D. & VOGLER, C. (1988) Social Class in Modern Britain LONDON:Hutchinson

RUBERY J., HORRELL, S & BURCHELL, B. (1994) ‘Part time work and gender inequality in the labour market’ pp205-234 in Gender Segregation and Social change (Ed) SCOTT,A M. OXFORD. Oxford University Press

VOGLER, C.(1994b) Money in the Household (pp226-266) Edited in The Social and Political Economy of the Household, Anderson, M.,Bechhofer, F & Gershung, J., OXFORD, Oxford University Press.

WALBY, S. (1986) Patriarchy at Work: Patriarchal and Capitalist Relations in employment. CAMBRIDGE, Polity Press

Publications & Government Papers

PERFECT, D, & HURRELL, K. 2003 Equal Opportunities Commission .

Equal Opportunities Commission(2000):Women and Men in Britain The Work-Life Balance

Social Trends 2003 (No 33) Editors: Carol Summerfield & Penny Babb

(p79-80)

Official National Statistics 2003 National Statistics Quality Review of Employment and Jobs Statistics

LA VALLE,I.,FINCH,S., NOVE, A & Charlotte LEWIN, C. (2000) rev edition) Parents' Demand for Childcare: Research Report 176, DfES Publications.Department for Education and Skills

Emma Clark, BBC business News Online reporter

Women and work http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/