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The moderating effect of educational level and the free choice of

hours on the relationship between women’s part-time work and

job satisfaction

Master thesis, specialization Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

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2 ABSTRACT

Several researchers have investigated the relationship between part-time work of women and their job satisfaction. In this study I argue that this relationship will be enhanced when the woman has a low education and when she is not constrained in choosing her desired working hours. OLS regression analysis was conducted with questionnaire data from the European Social Survey round 5. Using a sample of 235 women in the Netherlands, this study did not confirmed the hypotheses. Results did not suggest that educational level and the free choice of hours moderate the relationship between part-time work of women and their job satisfaction.

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3 1. INTRODUCTION

The majority of the population within the Netherlands spend much time of their life in employment. A few decades ago it was perfectly normal that a woman stopped working in the labour market when she got married or got her first child. Nowadays, the role of women is changing within the society. More women are in the workforce, and the differences between men and women are becoming more equivalent. Almost 75% of the mothers with young children are participating in the labour market, however the majority of the women is still working part-time (Portegijs, Cloïn, Keuzenkamp, Merens, & Steenvoorden, 2008).

The choice to work is for a lot of women not a free choice. In order to survive and to maintain a household, it is necessary to work. Because work covers an immense part of our lives, it is interesting to gain more information about job satisfaction. Particularly work related factors such as earnings and working hours, are shown to influence job satisfaction. Long working hours have a damaging effect on job satisfaction, especially in the private sector (Georgellis, Lange, Tabvuma, 2012). According to several studies, work contributes to the happiness of women (Booth & van Ours, 2008, 2009, 2010). Higher earnings and a higher level of education make it more attractive for women to participate in the labour market, even when they have children. Higher educated women are working more often than lower educated women. The amount of women with a bachelor degree or higher who are working is 8 out of 10 against 5 out of 10 with a vocational secondary education. Thus, women are working more hours when they are higher educated (Merens, Hartgers, & van den Brakel, 2012). According to Clark (1997) women’s jobs are worse than men’s jobs in terms of recruitment and selection, promotional opportunities and content, while women’s job satisfaction level is higher than men’s.

Several researchers researched the relationship between part-time work of women and their job satisfaction. Booth and van Ours (2008) expected job satisfaction to be lower for time jobs, however they found the opposite. For women with or without children, part-time jobs generate higher job satisfaction than do full-part-time jobs.

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4 affects females’ job satisfaction in a statistically significant way. They found that women who are higher educated are less happy at work compared to women with lower educational qualifications. A possible explanation could be that higher educated women have higher expectations which are not met. Another credible explanation is that highly educated, married mothers are the ones who are more likely to face issues of work-life conflict than men or married mothers with lower levels of education. In relation with part-time work, a plausible explanation of this effect could be the quality of part-time work. It is recorded that part-time jobs offer less career development, personal growth and educational advancement. So part-time jobs might be dead-end jobs which provide less job satisfaction (van der Meer & Wielers, 2013). Because higher educated women invest more in their human capital, it is probable that their job satisfaction is less when they perform a part-time job. Because of this information it is interesting to research the moderating effect of educational level on the relationship between female’s part-time work and job satisfaction. Moreover, higher educated women are often married with higher educated men. And lower educated women with lower educated men. According to Van der Meer & Wielers (2013) part-time workers have the same level of happiness as full-time workers. This holds as long as the choice for the amount of working hours is unconstrained. The choice might be less constrained due to the educational level of their partner. Therefore, I suggest that a number of women have to work full-time because they are married with a lower educated man. This leads to the research question of this paper:

What is the effect of educational level and the free choice of hours on the relationship between women’s part-time work and their job satisfaction?

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6 2. THEORY

Part-time work

A lot of research has been conducted on part-time work. Due to the recovery of the Dutch economy in the late 1990s, the part-time employment rate increased considerably. More than half of the employed women worked part-time within the 1990s (Euwals, 2001). In Europe, big differences exist in the share of part-time work among female workers (25-54 years). The rate of women working part-time ranges from 10% in Finland to 47% in Switzerland. A lot of part-time workers have no need to work full-time. In the Netherlands, in 2007 only 3% of female part-time workers desired to work full-time (van Ours, 2010).

The standard model would predict that part-time workers have an equal level of happiness as full-time workers. This holds as long as the choice of hours of work is unconstrained or voluntary. When the choice is constrained and less involuntary, for example by the availability of jobs, happiness will differ between part-time and full-time workers. It will be lowest for the group which is most constrained, because they have less possibilities to adjust the hours of work they prefer. Another exemption of this view is that it is recorded that part-time jobs offer less career development, personal growth and educational advancement. So part-time jobs might be dead-end jobs which provide less job satisfaction (van der Meer & Wielers, 2013).

Women who work part-time give up more than income when they are working a reduced amount of hours. The hourly wage in part-time work is less in comparison with both men’s pay and full-time working women’s pay. Moreover, women who switch from full-time to part-time jobs experience occupational downgrading. This can be explained by the suggestion that employees in part-time jobs tend to get less training and employers are often averse to invest in a workforce regarded as less essential (Gash et al., 2010). The above mentioned effects of part-time work are all negative, so the question rises why women choose to work part-time. If a woman’s role in society is to care for children, she might feel most satisfied if she works part-time. This does not mean that mothers are not able to work full-time; many do, but that behaviour is likely to receive less social support (Gash et al., 2010).

Job satisfaction

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7 specific characteristics (Clark, 1997). Job satisfaction is important because it is one of the three predictors of well-being and the distribution of well-being is a major concern of social science. Moreover, job satisfaction is correlated with absenteeism and worker productivity (Clark, 1997).

Psychologists created a lot of literature about job satisfaction. The model of Hackman and Oldham (1980) has been used a lot for research about job satisfaction. The authors of the job characteristics model argue that a job increases motivation and satisfaction when it offers task identity and significance, autonomy, when it gives direct feedback to the employee and when it requires skill variety.

Within the study of Sousa-Poza & Sousa-Poza (2000) a bottom-up approach has been used related to job satisfaction. This framework explains that job satisfaction depends on the balance between work-role inputs (education, working time, effort) and work-role outputs (wages, benefits, status, working conditions, intrinsic aspects). So job satisfaction will increase when the ‘pleasures’ (work-role outputs) increase relative to the ‘pains’ (work-role inputs). Years of schooling, working in an exhausting job, working in a dangerous job, usual working time per week and working in a physically demanding job characterize the work-role inputs. Job satisfaction will decrease when one of these inputs increase. The following variables capture the work-role outputs: work compensation, job security, interesting job, helping people, advancement opportunities, independent work, good relationship with management and colleagues, usefulness to society. Job satisfaction will increase when one of these outputs increase (Sousa-Poza & Sousa-Poza, 2000). So an increase in education and working time per week should have a negative effect on job satisfaction.

Booth and van Ours (2008) expected job satisfaction to be lower for part-time jobs, however they found the opposite. For women with or without children, part-time jobs generate higher job satisfaction than do full-time jobs. Women who work part-time (16-29h per week) tend to have higher job satisfaction than female full-timers. Moreover, women in part-time jobs report a 48% lower probability than full-timers of having a low job satisfaction (Bardasi & Francesconi, 2004). Based on the theory and findings above, I hypothesize the following:

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8 Educational level

Two opposing views exist on the efficiency why the majority of women are still working part-time. The first view is that without the existence of part-time work, the amount of women participating in the work force would be considerably lower, because than they would be confronted with the choice between no job or full-time jobs whereby a lot would opt for the former. The other view is that part-time work may involve wastage of the resources and the investments in human capital because many part-time working women have a high education (van Ours, 2010). This is quite remarkable, because nowadays in the Netherlands women in the age till 35 are higher educated than men (Merens et al., 2012). As already explained in the introduction, higher educated women are working more often than lower educated women and they are working more hours (Merens et al., 2012). Two factors can be distinguished why there is a difference between educational level and the job satisfaction of part-time workers. The first factor concerns the effect of educational level on the quality of the job and the second factor concerns the free choice of hours.

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9 job satisfaction in a statistically significant way. They found that women who are higher educated are less happy at work compared to women with lower educational qualifications. A credible explanation is that highly educated, married mothers are the ones who are more likely to face issues of work-life conflict than men or married mothers with lower levels of education. Based on the findings above, I hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 2: The expected positive relationship between women who work part-time and their job satisfaction becomes stronger when the woman has a low education

Free choice of hours

The literature on labour supply assumes that workers are able to choose their working hours freely. The invalidity of this assumption is recognized. In response to this, several models incorporating restrictions on working hours have been developed. Euwals (2001) developed a model to measure the flexibility of working hours within jobs, taking the job mobility decision and the non-employment decision into account. The women who stopped working have on average the following characteristics: they have a child that is below the age of 6, they have a lower educational level and they have more often a job of 12 or less hours. Moreover, the hourly wage has a significantly positive impact on the desired working hours: at the average desired hours of 24 per week an increase of the wage by 1% results in an increase in the desired hours by 0.14%. Within this study, the effect of the actual working hours and the desired hours seems high. An explanation for this effect could be individual preferences (Euwals, 2001).

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10 Concluding: a woman is not constrained by the educational level of her partner. Therefore I hypothesize the following:

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11 3. METHOD

In order to test the hypotheses, empirical data was obtained from the second edition of the European Social Survey (ESS) round five dataset (ESS round 5, 2010/11). The data analysis was confined to the female respondents. Only the data from the Netherlands was used, because the view of part-time work differs enormously among the member states of the European Social Survey. Moreover a selection was made of women who are in a paid job of at least 12 hours a week. The European Social Survey (ESS) is a biennial multi-country survey covering over 30 nations. The first round was fielded in 2002/2003 and the last in 2010/2011 which is used for this research. The questionnaire includes two main sections, a ‘core’ module which remains relatively constant from round to round, plus two or more ‘rotating’ modules. Each section contains approximately 120 items. The aim of the core module is to monitor change and continuity in a wide range of social variables. Trust in Criminal Justice and Work, Family and Well-being are the two rotating modules in the fifth round of the ESS. The data can be obtained freely via internet download from the Norwegian Social Science Data Services’ website (http://ess.nsd.uib.no/ess/round5/download.html). The survey contains a number of questions that are directly pertaining to the subject of this research. The job satisfaction of respondents is measured with one question: (G53) “How satisfied are you in your main job?”. The answer is measured on an eleven-point scale ranging from 00 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied), the option to answer “Don’t know” is available to the respondent as well. Job satisfaction was the dependent variable in this research.

To assess the respondent’s working hours, I made use of the following question (F30) “Regardless of your basic or contracted hours, how many hours do/did you normally work a week (in your main job), including any paid or unpaid overtime?” I recoded this question into a different variable, which I called working hours. According to the article of Booth & van Ours (2008) regular full-time hours are 30 or more and therefore I divided this variable into 2 groups; part-time (12-29h) and full-time (30 and more).

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12 to reproduce past findings on the positive relationship between women’s part-time work and their job satisfaction. The sample consisted of 235 women. For the second part of the analysis the moderators were introduced. Educational level and the free choice of hours were the moderators for the relationship between women’s part-time work and their job satisfaction. In the survey, the educational level was assessed by the following question: (F15) “What is the highest level of education you have successfully completed?” Within the question, there were 7 different answer possibilities ranging from “less than lower secondary” to “higher tertiary education”. The option to answer “Other” or “Don’t know” was available to the respondent as well. To test the free choice of hours, the partners educational level (F45) “What is the highest level of education your husband/wife/partner has successfully completed? “ and the variable “desired working hours” were used.

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13 4. RESULTS

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 displays the means and the standard deviations for part-time and full-time working women. The job satisfaction level for part-time working women (M = 7.71, SD = 1.80) is higher than for full-time working women (M = 7.64, SD = 1.69). The educational level differs between the groups, concluding that on average, full-time working women have the highest educational degree (M = 4.59, SD = 1.83). When the mean of the working hours is compared against the mean of the desired working hours for each group, it can be concluded that on average, women are working more hours than they would like to, with the largest difference for full-time working women. The partner’s educational level is higher for full-time working women (M = 4.25, SD = 1.99) than for part-time working women (M = 3.77, SD = 1.91). Moreover, task autonomy (M = 7.30, SD = 2.04), task variety (M = 3.33, SD = 0.76) and learning (M = 3.44, SD = 1.06) are higher for full-time jobs than for part-time jobs, which means that full-time jobs are better than part-time jobs in terms of job characteristics. However, the work pressure for full-time working women is higher (M = 3.89, SD = 0.89) than for part-time working women (M = 3.71, SD = 0.95).

TABLE 1

Descriptive Statistics small part-time, large part-time and full-time working women

Part-time Full-time

Variables Mean SD Mean SD

1. Age 44.06 9.33 38.59 10.89

2. Age² 20.28 8.05 16.06 8.77

3. Working hours 22.42 4.58 37.12 5.86

4. Job satisfaction 7.71 1.80 7.64 1.69

5. Educational level 3.59 1.85 4.59 1.83

6. Desired working hours 20.65 8.03 29.72 8.47

7. Partner’s educational level 3.77 1.91 4.25 1.99

8. Health 3.95 0.58 4.11 0.64

9. Subjective income 3.58 0.56 3.60 0.55

10. Task autonomy 6.33 2.52 7.30 2.04

11. Irregular working hours 2.35 1.50 2.37 1.44

12. Task variety 3.13 0.89 3.33 0.76

13. Work pressure 3.71 0.95 3.89 0.89

14. Learning 3.01 1.03 3.44 1.06

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14 In table 2, the frequencies for the desired working hours compared to the actual working hours can be found between the two groups. Within the part-time group, 48.2% of the women are satisfied with the amount of working hours and 35.7% would like to work less hours. Only 16.1% would like to work more hours. However, this percentage is high in comparison with the full-time group, because only 2.4% of the full-time working women would like to work more hours. A large amount of women with a full-time job would like to work less hours, precisely 71.5%.

TABLE 2

Frequencies desired working hours compared to actual working hours

Part-time Full-time

Would like to work more hours 16.1% 2.4%

Satisfied with the amount of working hours 48.2% 26.1%

Would like to work less hours 35.7% 71.5%

100% 100%

N 112 123

In table 3, the frequencies for the desired working hours compared to the actual working hours can be found between women with a low education and a high education. Remarkable is that 72% of the higher educated women would like to work less hours. For women with a lower educational degree this is more equally divided, 43.1% of the women are satisfied with the amount of working hours and 46.3% would like to work less hours.

TABLE 3

Frequencies desired working hours

Low education High education

Would like to work more hours 10.6 % 5.3 %

Satisfied with the amount of working hours 43.1 % 22.7 %

Would like to work less hours 46.3%

100 %

72 % 100 %

Average educational level 2.99 6.51

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15 Correlation analysis

Table 4 presents inter-correlations for all variables for the group part-time working women. As can be seen, educational level is negatively related to job satisfaction and not significant (r = -.08, n.s.). The correlation between educational level and partner’s educational level is positive and significant (r = .46, p <.01) which shows support for the reasoning that higher educated women are married to higher educated men. Moreover, the correlation between task variety and job satisfaction is positive and significant ( r = .21, p <.05). Health ( r = .21, p <.05), task autonomy ( r = .23, p <.05), irregular working hours ( r = .22, p <.05) and task variety ( r = .22, p <.05) are positively and significant related to educational level. The control variable irregular working hours is negative related to subjective income ( r = -.19, p <.05).

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16 TABLE 4

Descriptive Statistics and Study Variable Intercorrelations Part-time Working Women

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1. Age

2. Age² .99**

3. Job satisfaction .11 .10

4. Educational level -.16 -.18 -.08

5.Would like to work more hours -0.20 -.18 .02 -.03

6. Would like to work less hours -.03 -.05 .04 .16 -.33**

7. Partner’s educational level .06 .06 -.08 .46**

-.16 .11 8. Health -.15 -.15 .12 .21* -.04 -.06 .08 9. Subjective income .20* .20* .13 .13 -.15 .16 .22* .01 10. Task autonomy .18 .16 .04 .23* .00 .03 .30** .09 .20*

11. Irregular working hours -.05 -.04 -.01 .22*

-.11 -.03 .05 .14 -.19* .04

12. Task variety .06 .03 .21* .22* -.01 .10 .05 .15 .04 .17 .17

13. Work pressure .03 .04 .10 .00 -.02 .17 -.09 .04 -.08 -.09 .11 .20*

14. Learning -.21* -.23* .09 -.16 .02 -.01 -.09 .17 -.01 .08 .12 .19* .07

N 112

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17 TABLE 5

Descriptive Statistics and Study Variable Intercorrelations Full-time Working Women

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1. Age

2. Age² .99**

3. Job satisfaction .25** .24**

4. Educational level -.18* -.19* -.09

5.Would like to work more hours -.02 -.01 -.12 -.20*

6. Would like to work less hours -.23* -.24** -.04 .28** -.25**

7. Partner’s educational level -.13 -.13 .02 .50**

-.07 .17 8. Health -.19* -.19* -.05 .34** -.19* .19* .28** 9. Subjective income -.04 -.05 .15 .24** -.17 -.10 .20* .14 10. Task autonomy .03 .02 .15 .09 -.24** .15 .12 .11 .14

11. Irregular working hours .07 .08 .07 .04 .00 .12 .11 -.02 -.18 -.20*

12. Task variety .06 .05 .32** .12 -.07 .13 .13 .01 .17 .23** .16

13. Work pressure .13 .12 .19* .05 .08 .05 -.03 .08 .05 -.02 .25** .27**

14. Learning -.11 -.13 .14 .20* -.02 .21* .14 .03 .05 .19* .07 .20* -.07

N 123

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18 Hypothesis testing

Regression results for the model with job satisfaction as the dependent variable are summarized in Table 6, 7 and 8. To test the hypotheses, OLS regression is conducted.

To test hypothesis 1, first the regression is conducted without the control variables (model 1). Second the regression is conducted including the control variables (model 2). In model 2, the control variables and the working hours were entered in step 1. In step 2 the working hours were removed from the analysis, in order to see if the common effect of part-time work is significant.

To test hypothesis 2, first the regression is conducted without the control variables (model 1). Second the regression is conducted including the control variables (model 2). In model 2, first the control variables were entered as a predictor of job satisfaction. Second the working hours and educational level and third the interaction between part-time work and educational level. Finally, the working hours, educational level and the interaction were removed from the analysis to see or this effect is significant.

To test hypothesis 3, first the regression is conducted without the control variables (model 1), second the regression is conducted including the control variables (model 2). In model 1, first the dummy part-time vs. full-time, the partner’s educational level and the dummy’s ‘would like to work more hours’ and ‘would like to work less hours’ were entered, and second the interactions. In model 2, first the control variables were entered and second the interactions.

The first hypothesis predicted that women who work part-time are more satisfied with their job than women who work full-time. Referring to table 6, results indicated that the control variables including the main effect accounted for 9.8% (ΔR²=.0.98, n.s.) of the variance in job satisfaction. In model 2, F is 3.115 which is significant at p <.01. This tells us that there is less than a 0.1% change that a F-ratio this large would happen by chance alone. In short, the regression model 2 in table 6 overall predicts job satisfaction considerably well. This is reasonable, because job characteristics have an important influence on job satisfaction.

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19 TABLE 6

Regression analysis results hypothesis 1

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

The second hypothesis predicted that educational level moderated the relationship between women’s part-time work and their job satisfaction. For the analysis, the dummy variable part-time vs. full-time work was used and the interval variable for educational level. As can be seen in table 7, hypothesis 2 is not consistent as well (B = -.007, n.s.). The R² change is -0.14 and not significant. By controlling for the job characteristics, the effect of educational level increases. Moreover, the effect of educational level on job satisfaction (B = -.136, p = 0.055) is almost significant at the 0.05 level which means that when educational level increases, job satisfaction decreases.

Predictor Job satisfaction

Model 1 Model 2

B SE B SE

Main effects

Part-time Reference category

Full-time -.063 .228 .017 .241

Controls

Age .096 .086

Age² -.084 .104

Educational level -.137 .072

Partner’s educational level -.007 .065

Health .154 .187

Subjective income .400* .207

Task autonomy .018 .051

Irregular working hours .010 .079

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20 TABLE 7

Regression analysis results hypothesis 2

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

The third hypothesis predicted that the expected positive relationship between women who work part-time and their job satisfaction becomes stronger when the woman is able to freely choose her desired working hours, so when she is not constrained in choosing her working hours. To test this, the educational level of the partner and the satisfaction with the working hours were taken into account. Moreover, the interaction between part-time work and the educational level of the partner and the interaction between part-time work and satisfaction with the working hours were taken into account. Unfortunately, hypothesis 3 is not consistent

Predictor Job satisfaction

Model 1 Model 2

B SE B SE

Main effects

Part-time Reference category

Full-time .016 .236 .017 .241

Moderator

Educational level -.079 .062 -.137 .072

Interaction

Part-time vs. full-time * educational level -.007 .124 -.024 .123 Controls

Age .094 .084

Age² -.083 .102

Educational level -.136 .071

Partner’s educational level -.007 .065

Health .154 .187

Subjective income .400* .206

Task autonomy .018 .050

Irregular working hours .009 .079

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21 as well (B = .097, n.s.), (B = -1.642, n.s.) and (B = -.495, n.s.). This means that there is no evidence that supports hypothesis 3.

TABLE 8

Regression analysis results hypothesis 3

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). Predictor Job satisfaction

Model 1 Model 2

B SE B SE

Main effects

Part-time Reference category

Full-time -.070 .248 .028 .254

Moderator

Educational level partner -.028 .060 -.006 .066

Satisfied with the amount of working hours Reference category

Would like to work more hours -.173 .432 .097 .422

Would like to work less hours -.007 .258 .012 .256

Interaction

Part-time vs. full-time * educational level partner .097 .120 .075 .116 Part-time vs. full-time * would like to work more hours -1.642 1.163 -1.563 1.129 Part-time vs. full-time * would like to work less hours -.495 .518 -.286 .505 Controls

Age .094 .084

Age² -.083 .102

Educational level -.136 .071

Partner’s educational level -.007 .065

Health .154 .187

Subjective income .400* .206

Task autonomy .018 .050

Irregular working hours .009 .079

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22 5. DISCUSSION

Findings

Past research suggests that part-time jobs generate higher job satisfaction than do full-time jobs (Booth & van Ours, 2008). My goal has been to research that a positive relationship between part-time work of women and their job satisfaction is contingent on educational level and free choice of hours. The expectations were to find a positive relationship between part-time work and job satisfaction and that this relationship becomes stronger when a woman has a low education. Moreover the second expectation was that the expected positive relationship between women who work part-time and their job satisfaction becomes stronger when a woman is not constrained in choosing her desired working hours.

The empirical tests of these hypotheses did not generate results that were in line with my expectations. The cause can be found in the data collection. To find a relationship it might be necessary to have a higher sample than 235 working women.

Moreover, no real difference was found between the job satisfaction level of part-time and full-time working women. This can be explained by the fact that education affects females’ job satisfaction in a statistical significant way. Georgellis et al. (2012) found that women who are higher educated are less happy at work compared to women with lower educational qualifications. In contrast to this, it is recorded that part-time jobs offer less career development, personal growth and educational advancement (van der Meer & Wielers, 2013). Overall, high educated women work more often full-time and low educated women part-time. So high educated women might be less happy at work because of the work-life conflict and low educated women because of part-time jobs which might be dead-end jobs. This could be an explanation for the almost equal level of job satisfaction for part-time and full-time working women.

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23 Theoretical contribution and practical implications

As already explained, two opposing views exist on the efficiency why the majority of women are still working part-time. The first view is that without the existence of part-time work, the amount of women participating in the work force would be considerably lower, because than they would be confronted with the choice between no job or full-time jobs whereby a lot would opt for the former. The other view is that part-time work may involve wastage of the resources and the investments in human capital because many part-time working women have a high education (van Ours, 2010). Referring to the outcomes of this study, 72% of the women with a high education would like to work less hours in comparison with their actual hours. Most of the higher educated women work full-time, which means that they invest in their human capital. The reason why this group works full-time is probably the lower quality of part-time jobs. Despite of the fact that the majority of higher educated women would like to work less hours, they still invest in their human capital by working full-time. Therefore the existence of part-time jobs is not a problem, because higher educated women still choose to work full-time, even if they would like to work less hours which might have a negative effect on their life satisfaction. For the lower educated women it is efficient that part-time work exists, because otherwise it is reasonable that they would choose for no job. Based on this reasoning, the existence of part-time jobs is not a real problem for Dutch society.

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24 Limitations and future research

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