Married Women in Part-Time Employment

This research deals with three aspects of the part-time employment pattern of working wives: (1) the wives' characteristics, (2) the level and structure of their earnings in part-time jobs, and (3) the duration of their employment when part-time jobs are available to them. This study improves upon previous research by using multivariate analysis to determine if the variation in the incidence of part-time work consistently found in other studies persists when earnings potential, fertility, family income, and other factors that may vary by age or race are held constant. It differs further by including a data source that contains direct measures of market wages and experience for a large sample of married working women. The authors find that husband's income, family size, and the wife's health, race, and previous work experience are among the variables that influence the probability that the wife works part time. They also find that the level of wages and returns to some investments in human capital are relatively lower in the part-time labor market but that there are similarities between the earnings structure of part-time and full-time jobs. They conclude that part-time work opportunities appear to increase the length of the working life of married women.