Moving down: women’s part-time work and occupational change in Britain 1991-2001

Abstract

We give a quantitative analysis of the nature of occupational change - based on the utilisation of skills - as women make the transition between full-time and part-time work. We show that one-quarter of women moving from full- to part-time work experience downgrading. Women remaining with their current employer are less vulnerable and the availability of part-time opportunities is far more important than the presence of a pre-school child in determining whether a woman moves to a lower-skilled occupation. These findings indicate a loss of economic efficiency through the underutilisation of the skills of many of the women who work part-time.