Tenth Edition of The Evidence: Why We Need to Change the Narrative Around Part-Time Work

In this month’s edition of The Evidence newsletter, Josephine Lethbridge explores how new flexible working policies are effectively reducing the gender pay gap.

Chris Stirling, a technology consultant living in Glasgow with his young family, took the decision to reduce his working hours in August 2020. Choosing to work part-time, Chris says, has given him “the best of both worlds.” In the office, he gets to work on a variety of projects. At home, his flexible working pattern means he can spend more quality time with his two children, aged 7 and 4.

Although Chris feels “incredibly fortunate” about his situation, when talking to other dads he often notices that his experiences are far from the norm.

In fact, only 28 percent of part-time workers in the UK are men.

It was Chris’s employer, the insurance company Zurich, that empowered him to make the switch to part-time work; its flexible working policy encourages men to work fewer hours.

Zurich’s progressive policies came about after the company took part in a government-funded project studying effective methods for closing gender pay gaps. At the time, Zurich’s pay gap stood at 26.3 percent, with the difference in career outcomes between full-time and part-time workers, most of whom were women, driving pay disparities. In 2019, the company responded by advertising more roles with “flexible, part-time or jobshare” options. Today, the benefits of this change are clear to see. Four times as many employees work part-time, 110 percent more women are applying to job vacancies, and the number of part-time internal promotions has increased by 167 percent.

A new report highlights the pressing challenges surrounding part-time work. Minna Cowper-Coles, a gender pay expert at King’s College London, says that “there is a real stigma around part-time and flexible working and therefore a shortage of good part-time jobs.” Her research shows that mothers of primary-school aged children are 13 percent more likely to have low-quality, time flexible jobs.

Heejung Chung, who also worked on the report, argues that part-time work becomes stigmatised when men eschew flexible policies. So, for her, to make meaningful changes to attitudes and outcomes, “we need more men and fathers to work remotely, flexibly and part-time.”

But how can we encourage positive change in our places of work and our communities? What are the difficult questions we need to ask in order to do so?

Read this month’s full newsletter to learn more about what really works to close the gender pay gap. An archive of past issues can be accessed through Social Science Space.