Part-Time Work and Working Poverty in 21 Affluent Democracies: A Multi-Level Perspective

• In Event: 127 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Paper Session: Table 16. Poverty I

Abstract

The global rise of flexible work relations represents one of the most important workplace trends in the last several decades. One way in which this trend can be seen is in the growth of nonstandard work, or more specifically part-time employment, in many prosperous democracies. Although part-time work has been studied in many contexts, it has never been explored as a potential explanation for working poverty. This paper adds to the understanding of flexible work with a multilevel study of working poverty in twenty-one countries. Drawing from the nonstandard work literature, this paper uses two theoretical perspectives, the “precarious work” and institutionalization perspectives, to examine the relationship between part-time work and working poverty both at the individual and country levels. The analyses consistently find a strong relationship between working part-time and an individual’s odds of being working poor, suggesting that nonstandard work is in fact a determinant of working poverty at the individual-level. However, the relationship is not found to be significant at the country-level, lending little support for either theoretical perspective. Taken together, these findings highlight not only the salience of part-time status within the study of working poverty, but also the need for future research to further clarify the meaning of part-time work at the macro-level.

Authors

• Destinee McCollum, Oklahoma State University

• Andrew S. Fullerton, Oklahoma State University