Introduction

Over the last two decades a substantial literature has developed around the theme of part-time employment and its links to various aspects of the welfare state. The vast majority of this body of theoretical and policy-related writing and empirical research has rightly focused upon women’s part-time employment as both a contributing factor in the continuing economic inequality between women and men, and an outcome of the industrial transformation of pre-existing gendered divisions of labour. More recent comparative social policy literature has focused, sometimes implicitly, on the level and nature of women’s part-time work as one of several indicators of the extent to which welfare regimes are gendered, or more precisely, how far the regimes diverge from the ‘male model’. However, among the changes associated with the flexibilisation of labour, in most OECD countries rates of male part-time employment have been increasing over the last decade. This development raises interesting theoretical questions around the future use of the ‘male model’ as a standard by which the development of gender relations can be measured. At the level of material welfare, it is questionable whether male part-time workers share the disadvantages and inequalities experienced by women who work part-time. It is also possible that the male part-time worker is a yet more troublesome anomaly in welfare states founded on the 48:48:48 male model of employment: 48 hours a week, 48 weeks a year, for 48 years of a lifetime (Harker, 1996, p 5).

This discussion is a mapping exercise presented in three sections. First, there is a brief overview and comparison of the patterns of male and female part-time employment in selected countries. The incidence of male part-time employment is examined in relation to welfare regime types and other economic, social and political factors. Second, the chapter focuses on the extent to which the experience of part-time work and welfare is shared by women and men. The knowledge that women workers experience diswelfare because the structure of welfare states is based on male employment patterns is now well established, uncontentious and has led to limited national and European Union-devised modifications to the various systems. The chapter suggests that additional pressures for more far-reaching reform may become manifest where male workers are found to be excluded from a system based upon male work.