Men and Part-Time Work: An Introductory Study

Part-time employment is a contested subject in the academic literature. These disputes include the reasons for participating in part-time employment and the degree of choice workers have in ‘opting’ for part-time employment. The evidential base for these discussions is predominantly based on the experience of women workers. While there are reasons for this focus, primarily the preponderance of part-time employees who are female, the experiences of male part-time workers, who represent a small but growing percentage of the part-time labour force, have been largely ignored in the academic literature. As Hakim comments in relation to work preferences ‘there is almost no research that asks men what they want, in quite the same way as the voluminous on what women want’ (2003, pg 233) .
The aim of this paper is to extend these debates by exploring the ‘choices’ males employees make when taking part-time work. Specifically, the paper considers, the reasons men work part-time, whether part-time work is a positive choice or merely an option because full time work is not available, and how this group respond to potential barriers to part-time work. The research is based on in-depth interviews with males, aged 25-50 who currently have one or more part-time jobs.