Women's Part-Time/Full-Time Wage Differentials in Europe: An Endogenous Switching Model

Abstract

This paper analyzes the composition of the wage differentials among part-time and full-time working women in seven European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom. Using cross-sectional microdata from the eighth waves of the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions project (EU-SILC), the study investigates the variances in part-time/full-time hourly wage gap and the role of different occupational profiles as a possible explanation. Applying an Oaxaca-Blinder Wage Decomposition, corrected for double sample selection to account for participation decisions and part-time/full-time choice, the adjusted wage gap is found to be negative in all countries except Sweden, where data show a significant part-time premium. Controlling for different job-related characteristics, the research points to a reduction of the gap in all countries; the unexplained portion remains, however, relevant in some countries. In order to shed light on the latter, existing studies are evaluated showing how cross-country dissimilarities can be due to cultural characteristics connected to workers' preferences and different institutional frameworks.