Part‐time Workers and the Economy Available to Purchase

In the last decade the growth of part‐time employment has been one of the most significant factors affecting the size and composition of the labour force in many industrialised countries. Part‐time employment grew in terms of absolute numbers and as a proportion of the total labour force in most EEC member states and a recent OECD report suggests that other industrialised countries, such as Japan, have had similar experiences. The vast majority of these part‐timers are women. In 1977 26.4 per cent of all females in employment in the EEC were part‐time workers, compared with only 2.6 per cent of all males in employment, and females constituted 85 per cent of all part‐time workers. Most of these women who work on a part‐time basis are married women between the ages of 25 and 59. This group made up 73 per cent of the total number of women working part‐time in Britain according to the 1971 Census. Most industrialised countries have experienced an increased participation of females in the labour force since the war and, as Figure 1 shows, between 1973 and 1977 the proportion of females in employment who worked part‐time rose in the majority of EEC member countries. Outside the Scandinavian countries the UK now has one of the highest proportions of part‐time workers in Europe.