Trabajo a tiempo parcial de las mujeres en España e ItaliaEl debilitamiento de la norma de empleo estable
- Pilar Ortiz García 1
- Laura Cosimi 2
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1
Universidad de Murcia
info
- 2 Funcionaria del Ministero de Lavoro e Politiche Sociali, Staff della Consigliera nazionale di Paritá. Roma (Italia).
ISSN: 2254-3295
Year of publication: 2017
Issue Title: Economía y Sociología
Issue: 131
Pages: 35-54
Type: Article
More publications in: Revista del Ministerio de Empleo y Seguridad Social: Revista del Ministerio de Trabajo, Migraciones y Seguridad Social
Abstract
Part-time work has traditionally emerged as an instrument for a better work-life balancing/a better balance of caring and professional responsibilities.This potential virtue has been joined with the idea that this formula can be a way of creating employment, because of the advantageous conditions for the employer to adjust production to a job offer with less rigid contractual links. This has led to a growth in part-time work, although not homogenously. Part-time employment has been increasing in Spain and Italy more than the rest of Europe, especially among women. The article analyzes some of the hypothesis that can explain this increase, pointing out the similarities of these two cases and influencing the position of women in the labour market. In order to carry out this analysis, we have worked with aggregated data from various statistical sources from European Union countries, particularly the Eurostat Labour Force Survey. Likewise, the statistical sources of the countries observed have been consulted. In the case of Italy, data come from the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica and in the case of Spain, from the National Statistical Institute. These data have been interpreted in the light of the explanatory theoretical framework that, from a gender perspective, considers two great types of factors: the conjunctural and the structural ones. Regarding the former, an analysis of the impact of the last major economic crisis is carried out. Specifically, data are considered from the period between 2007 –when the crisis erupted– and 2014, when the European economy began to show signs of recovery. The crisis has been joined with a general increase in the precariousness of forms of employment in the countries observed. In addition to the traditional high rate of temporality –especially in the case of Spain– another form of flexible use of employment has been added, such as part-time work, both for permanent and fixed-terms contracts. While part-time employment is still higher among women, a significant increase has been observed in men during this period of crisis. In any case, the economic crisis brought to the loss of the overall quality of employment of the most vulnerable workers, especially women, which justifies observing the labour market in this period. As regard structural factors, the possible effect of welfare patterns on the extent of parttime work, particularly related to the characteristics of Southern European countries, is analyzed first. In this sense, we analyze the impact of social and family policies on the participation of women in the labour market. Furthermore, the study describes the legal framework of both countries, especially the most recent legislation on the regulation of part-time work. A relevant fact is that Spain and Italy have many similarities in the normative dimension. One of them is that, although this type of employment has appeared with a certain character of exceptionality, it has been progressively strengthened by the last labour reforms as a means of promoting flexible employment, especially in groups with high unemployment levels (women and young boys). Similarities are also observed in finding a balance in the asymmetries produced in the working conditions of part-time workers with respect to full-time ones; in the case of Spain, from the change in the contribution input period to get a pension and in the Italian case, with the increase of the prerogative of the worker to change the provisions of this flexible contact. Finally, the position of women in the labour market is analyzed, a position that explains the unequal impact of part-time work in the countries under analysis. Also in this dimension there are similarities between the two countries, such as the slowdown in the incorporation of women in the labour market, as well as a lower proportion of female workers compared to the more developed European countries. Undoubtedly, this analogy is influenced by factors of a cultural nature, such as a more pronounced unequal sharing of care responsibilities between women and men in these Southern European countries, which share a familistic culture that can limit the employment opportunities of women with family responsibilities. The results of this study show the opportunity to analyze the issue in terms of gender. Quantitative factors, such as the greater proportion of women working part-time in these countries, as well as structural aspects, such as women’s weakest position in the labour market, are basic for the positive evolution of part-time work in these scenarios. The occupational profile of part-time workers in Spain and Italy is that of female workers with a low level of qualification, employed mostly in elementary occupations and with a high level of involuntary acceptance of this form of employment that has grown during the period of crisis. According to other research on the subject, this study shows that the division between feminized and masculinized occupations relies on the segregation of women into activities that are especially precarious and require less qualification. This is a common feature in the Spanish and Italian labour markets, which is evident when the percentage difference between men and women part-time employed in «basic occupations» in both countries with respect to Europe is observed. Therefore, without ignoring cultural questions, such as the family tradition of the countries of Southern Europe that lead women to choose formulas allowing work-life balance, the results point out other arguments that explain the progress of this form of work in Spain and Italy, as the position of women in «secondary markets» employment.
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