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...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Ramos Lobo, Raúl, Sanromà, Esteve, Simón Pérez, Hipólito J.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/105639
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/105639
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Treball a temps parcial
Salaris
Igualtat retributiva
Contractes de treball
Espanya
Part-time employment
Wages
Pay equity
Labor contract
Spain
Descripción
Sumario: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.