Working Part-Time: Risks and Opportunities

The hiring of part-time and temporary workers has historically been a mechanism for adjusting imbalances between supply and demand in the labor market. The use of such workers has increased dramatically as technological changes have put a premium on flexibility, and as fringe benefits have come to constitute an increasing percentage of labor costs. Flexibility is sought not only by organizations, but also by individuals: students, women with children, disabled persons, and retirees all benefit by part-time opportunities. Part-Time Work discusses these opportunities, and the risk involved in employment which is sometimes underpaid and devalued, and from which movement to full-time positions is difficult.

This volume represents the work of a cross-section of specialists in labor economics, industrial relations specialists, and social scientists who are engaged in research on the transformation of work in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. Chapters focus on the structural aspects of part-time work, conditions under which such work is performed, constraints imposed on employers by official agencies, and expectations and attitudes of part-time workers rooted in a particular society. Part-Time Work will prove particularly useful to sociologists, labor specialists, and relevant government agencies, organizations, and unions.

BARBARA D. WARME, a sociologist, is currently doing research in the Netherlands and is on leave from York University in Canada. At the University, she has taught in the areas of public policy and the sociology of work, and was the Director of the Writing Workshop for six years. She collaborated with Kitty Lundy on Work In The Canadian Context: Continuity Despite Change and Sociology: A Window on the World.

KATHERINA L.P. LUNDY was, at the time of her death, a sociologist at Atkinson College, York University and also at Erindale College at the University of Toronto. Most of her research was in occupational sociology and has been widely reported at conferences and in journal articles. She co-authored this and four other books with Barbara Warme.

LARRY A. LUNDY develops computer-assisted modes of analysis of social service data for the provincial Ministry of Community and Social Services in Ontario. His research and teaching have been in anthropology, social work, and sociology.