Part-time work: Atypical? Precarious? Normal?

The increase in part-time arrangements is a sign of growing flexibility on the labour markets. One question in this context is whether flexibility in fact characterises a new development at all. Kratzer [4] asserts that flexibility in itself is nothing new, although its current forms certainly are. Following this interpretation, “conventional” normal employment in a Post-Fordist sense is already a type of flexible employment.² Work, labour as well as the working environment are all dramatically changing. According to Kratzer, this is not a transformation from a stable system to a flexible one, but more “(…) a transition of flexibilisation, virtually a flexibilisation of the flexibilisation” [4, p. 3].

The Austrian labour market is characterised by a heterogenic structure of entrepreneurship [5, p. 34, p. 40] and by very liberal and flexible employment protection legislation. This had been counteracted by the high impact of the so-called “social partnership” (Sozialpartnerschaft) and its interest groups (e.g. Chamber of Labour and Austrian Trade Union) who had a strong influence on hiring policies at company level. The system specific to Austria was characterised by social partners who had the power, resources and influence to control and manage domestic economic and social policies.³

In the 1980s and 1990s, Austria faced a period of significant transformation in economic and labour-related affairs. The rising international dependency and on-going neoliberal political influence challenged the social and welfare state and also changed the structure of the Austrian labour market as well as the influence of the social partnership.

Recent reforms, which “(…) resulted in a strengthening of traditional features — the respective systems now tend to be even more employment and earning-related than before” [9, p. 29], show evidence of this situation.

It should be noted that only the conservative orientation of the Austrian Welfare State revealed its strength: Over the course of the financial crisis, the use of short-time working arrangements was remarkably successful. The (conservative) labour market regulation with internal flexibility measures recorded better performance than external flexibility measures, such as hire and fire [11, 12].

Nevertheless, the publications of Statistik Austria⁶ reveal an increase in marginally-employed workers, a greater amount of temporary and subcontracted labour and the self-employed, a rise in jobs with frequently changing start and end times, and a growth in part-time working contracts. Increasing working time flexibility reflects this tendency as well as the numerical flexibility⁷ in Austria: Data from the Austrian Social Insurance⁸ shows that a quarter of employees change their occupation within a year⁹ [15, 16]. It is the male-dominated standard (“normal”) working day which is gripped by the process of erosion [17].

This tendency towards more flexibility is also revealed by the fact that only 46 % of all workers in Austria have the same working hours every day (2000: 51 %). Only about 52 % have stable start and end times at work (2000: 59 %) [18]. Workers within rotating job models and within shift-working contracts increased from 15 % to 19 % between 1998 and 2008 [19]. According to the European Commission, “it will come to a double-tracked development in which new forms of flexible and autonomous ‘knowledge work’ will coexist with repetitive and intense production systems” [20, p. 7].

The trend is obvious: Working conditions in the future will become more flexible. The task is to emphasise the positive aspects of this development for both the employers and the employees. Broadly speaking, “employers welcome work on demand” while employees favour “free time on demand” [21].

From a normative employee-centric point of view, workers should not be forced into flexible working arrangements. Flexibilisation must serve as an alternative which guarantees social security equal to normal, full employment.

Using the most common classification, all working arrangements with fewer than 35 h¹⁰ of work are considered part-time. In Austria, part-timers are fully included in the social system and fully integrated under labour law regulations¹¹: They are socially insured in the case of accidents, disease, and unemployment and also enjoy pension benefits. They are also integrated in the severance pay system. According to data from Statistik Austria, 44 % of women work part-time while only 9 % of men do so [23]. The overall part-time rate in Austria is around 25 %. The part-time working ratio of more than 80 % among woman is significant [24].

Explanations for the rise in atypical working arrangements like part-time work — between 2005 and 2010, the part-time rate increased by 3 % annually [25] — range from people’s new demands for working and living conditions to greater economic pressure and challenges. The reasons for part-time work in Austria differ between the genders: Almost four out of ten women mention family and care issues as reasons for working part-time, while only 4 % of men state the same. For them, vocational training is the most common reason for part-time work. Data from Statistik Austria shows that the lower the occupational qualification, the higher the part-time rate [24].

The hourly wage is lower than in a full-time job, and compared to other countries, many part-time jobs in Austria would fall under the classification of better paid full-time employment [5]. Other problems that arise with regard to part-time work include a lack of career advancement opportunities and lower job security [26, 27]. Part-time workers are often seen as peripheral workers and are given unfavourable working times [28].

Counting unpaid housework, parenting and fostering as work, part-time employed women work even more hours a week than fully-employed men. Women in Austria reach a weekly workload of up to 60 h [18, 29]. This could be an explanation for the results of the “Arbeitsklima Index”¹² in Austria which shows that most workers do not intend to move into a full-time job [18, p. 92] [30]. However, surveys in Germany emphasise that women in particular want to have the right to move into a full-time job or work more monthly hours [27, 31]. The fact that part-time employment is seen as a preferred arrangement under special circumstances and not as a permanent status is highlighted by the fact that 34 % of part-time workers view their job as a “workaround” and almost a third of part-time workers explicitly want to work more [32].

The development in the future expansion of part-time work will mainly depend on the following factors: Investment in childcare facilities and progress towards more flexible forms of employment (flexitime, working time accounts) will lead to a decrease in employed women working part-time but will increase the overall rate of employed women at the same time. Further development is also dependent on the acceptance of part-time work in society in general: If workers in higher positions work part-time more often, this will have an influence on the overall rate. The longer life expectancy as well as the improved health conditions of the elderly, who will work more during their retirement, will also have an impact on the part-time workforce. Taking into account a simple extrapolated trend of the part-time developments and the Austria-specific parameters, a part-time rate of about a third is realistic in Austria for 2020 [33]. In this context it should be noted that in the first half of 2010, a rise in part-time working arrangements was statistically related to a decrease in full-time employment while the unemployment rate declined slightly [34–36]. It is also statistically proven that the rise in employment in Austria since 1995 exclusively stems from the growth in part-time work [24].

Analysing the European labour markets reveals that the rise in atypical work reflects an on-going neoliberal economic trend [37, 38]. Data show a rapid and permanent erosion of normal working contracts. “Normal” in this context means permanent and full employment with stable starting and end times, from Monday to Friday [39, p. 3f]. Consequently, every work situation which differs from this definition is considered atypical. The increase in atypical work threatens the social system and its tax-based foundations, which relate mainly to the “normal” working classification. The adjective “precarious” is often used in connection with atypical working arrangements. Browsing the relevant scientific literature reveals the vagueness of the term. “Occasionally the borders between atypical and precarious become blurred in a synonymous equalisation” [26, p. 502]. Brehmer and Seifert [26] build some categories which help to define variables for precarious work. Working arrangements which are changed in the course of flexibilisation should be operationalised through the following dimensions: income, job security, employability and social security. The authors show that a combination, or rather the accumulation of these different dimensions, leads to precarious situations. But even with this categorisation of the problem area, defining what is precarious or not continues to be a complex issue. When it comes to subjectivity and the self-determination of workers to characterise precarious work, the concept becomes more vague and difficult to operationalise [26, 40]. Atypical work like temporary agency work or non-permanent part-time work could, for example, serve as a starting point for a stable working situation and could therefore not automatically be defined as precarious work. In other contexts, such work could also lead to instability and social troubles.

Nevertheless, for a rising number of people, this leads to precarious working and living situations, and studies show that workers in atypical work situations face a higher risk of precarious working and living conditions [40]. The great increase in part-time jobs underlines these assertions. Compared to 1998, when 16 % of all employees were part-timers, almost a quarter of the work force is currently part-time employed in Austria. Open-end contracts are still in the majority, but the number of non-permanent contracts is constantly growing [29]. As a consequence, should part-time work be included in a group with the increasing number of marginally-employed workers, the greater amount of temporary and subcontracted labour and the self-employed, who are usually categorised as atypical?

More and more scholars argue that part-time work should no longer be seen as atypical employment (for Austria, see for example [41]).¹³ As already stated, part-time work in Austria is socially and legally equal to full-time work. In line with this interpretation, almost 90 % of the workforce in Austria is currently “normally” employed.

Work is made precarious by special forms of flexibilisation. The labour market expert Marcel Finke defines the “rise in non-standard forms of employment” [9] as one of these developments. This includes all jobs without collective agreements. The number of such forms of employment is rising, but most of the workers are still embedded in collective agreements – also part-time work arrangements. Another form is the low-wage sector of the labour market. This sign of flexibilisation and especially of deregulation in the labour market is not only a problem for part-time workers: Almost 15 % of the full-time employed in Austria already work in a precarious low-wage sector. What actually leads to a risky situation for workers is the combination of atypical arrangements, like a non-permanent part-time job. It must be noted that the degree of precariousness differs between job branches: In Austria, for example, jobs in the tourism industry are affected most [42].

Due to the full integration into the labour and social law regulations, holding part-time work in Austria is not a precarious situation for most employees. Generally, however, most problems arise in the future: In case of redundancy, unemployment benefits, severance pays and pension rates are lower in comparison to long-time full employment. Women in particular suffer in this context. The high part-time rate in combination with high divorce rates and the paternalistic orientation of the Austrian welfare state should be taken into account in this connection [5, 44]. Especially in Germany, against the backdrop of the Hartz IV reforms, non-standard forms of employment are criticised, as is part-time work. In statistical studies, all working contracts with 35 h or less are classified as part-time work. As a result, the variations of working hours are high, and differentiations between what is categorised under the term part-time work are essential.

Part-time work is a persistent trend on Europe’s labour markets and reflects the development of deregulation and flexibilisation. Part-time work is mostly grouped under atypical work and therefore automatically connected with precarious working and living conditions: low wages, a low level of social security and a high rate of involuntary work [43].

In labour market contexts, where these forms of employment differ significantly from the common social and legal setting, these assumptions are true. Adaptions to labour law regulations, such as in Austria, treat part-time work almost as equal to full-time work and thus challenge this connection.

Political decisions are needed to embed the increasing part-time arrangements into a modern labour market setting, in which flexibility is not only employer-driven but also flanked by reduced future risks. It is particularly difficult for political decision-makers to influence the quantitative development of atypical part-time work. On a qualitative level (social rights, labour law, wage issues), however, there is more potential for political influence in terms of “context governance” [37].

The following list constitutes an initial attempt to propose political measures which are essential to disconnect part-time work from precarious working and living conditions. These policy pointers could serve as a starting point for further discussion and promote further in-depth research. As mentioned in this article, it is difficult to define what makes work precarious. The following policy pointers are based on the categorisation of Brehmer and Seifert [26].