part-time pathways

The PP got its first publicity splash yesterday with a 2-page feature in London’s Evening  Standard !

In a previous blog I referred at some length to the excellent OECD report Closing the Gender Gap.  I quoted one figure which I said I found hard to believe – that only 3% of part-time women workers went on to work full-time.  I checked with the OECD and they very promptly and helpfully gave me the reference source.  It turns out that the 3% refers specifically to women who use part-time employment as a stepping stone to full-time having started outside employment altogether.   The broader figure for progressing from part-time to full-time is 14% , and I think we agreed that this is a more generally relevant figure.

It’s not that I’m a stickler for statistical exactitude.  But mapping out these kinds of trajectory is really important, given that so large a proportion of women in the UK work part-time (40% if my memory serves me right – but I’d better check that….).   I’m coming more and more to the conclusion that the position of part-timers is absolutely central to the whole PP issue, and the data on them is quite often very patchy.  For example, Women Like Us, an innovative organisation that promotes high-quality part-time jobs for women, has noted that ONS doesn’t collect data on part-time vacancies beyond JobCentrePlus.  How many othersimilar  cases are there of p-t marginalisation?