The part-time wage penalty: Does bargaining coverage outweigh regional differences in Spain
The use of part-time jobs is steadily increasing in most advanced economies. Previous literature has concluded that part-time workers suffer a wage penalty, but its magnitude varies across studies and countries. The part-time penalty is the otherwise unexplained element of the gap between full-time...
| Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | article |
| Status: | Versión aceptada para publicación |
| Publication Date: | 2016 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya) |
| Repository: | Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:recercat.cat:2445/105639 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/2445/105639 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Treball a temps parcial Salaris Igualtat retributiva Contractes de treball Espanya Part-time employment Wages Pay equity Labor contract Spain |
| Summary: | The use of part-time jobs is steadily increasing in most advanced economies. Previous literature has concluded that part-time workers suffer a wage penalty, but its magnitude varies across studies and countries. The part-time penalty is the otherwise unexplained element of the gap between full-time and part-time hourly earnings. One potential factor accounting for international differences in this penalty is the coverage of collective bargaining. This article outlines research examining wage differences between parttime and full-time male and female workers in Spain, a country with a very high level of coverage of collective agreements but very heterogeneous regional labour markets. Results are obtained using an econometric decomposition specifically adapted to matched employer-employee data. They show that intra-firm wage differentials for part- and fulltime workers with the same characteristics are negligible. But results that are perhaps less expected are those based on the regional analysis - an unprecedented perspective compared with the previous literature. These results show that despite very significant differences in economies and labour markets, observed wage gaps between part-time and full-time workers in each Spanish region are also mainly explained by different endowments of individual, job and firm characteristics. Overall, our evidence highlights the over-riding role of wage setting mechanisms, specifically collective bargaining coverage, in minimising inter-regional differences in the wage penalty of part-time workers. |
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