Part-Time Work: What’s So “Lucky” About It?

by Kristin Maschka

When was the last time you were grateful to someone for treating you unfairly? For me it was when my belly bulged with my first child. My employer had just refused my meticulously crafted proposal to go part time. My subsequent search turned up a local start-up company where the chief operating officer was due with her first a month before I was. With her influence, they offered me a half-time position at half pay, no retirement benefits (OK, I’ve socked away a lot the past few years), no health insurance (fine, I’ll pay my husband’s employer to add me to his plan), no paid sick or vacation time (all right, since I’m working part time I should be able to work around that). No stock options, either. I was filled with gratitude for finding an employer willing to let me work part time.

After my daughter was born and I was laid off when I returned from maternity leave, I paused to question what had happened. When I was asked to accept 50% pay for 50% work hours, why not ask for 50% of a health plan, paid sick leave and vacation time? I added a lot of value while I was there, why didn’t I ask for one half the stock options? The perfect job with the perfect schedule in the perfect location for my pregnancy blinded me from realizing that the principle of equal pay for equal work should also translate into proportional pay and benefits for proportional work.

Many mothers —and others, too—want to work less than full time at some point in their lives. In Mothers & More’s recent member survey, more than 80% of members When we asked all our members—currently employed or not—to choose their ideal level of work, more than 85% of them said less than 30 hours per week.

Diane Esemplare, Greater Wayne Area, NJ Chapter 233, “lucked into” a part-time job as a ceramic engineer. Her flexible hours make room for caring for two daughters, her job is close to home, and she says, “Most importantly, I still get to be an engineer.” Yet she has no health benefits or paid vacation because her company schedules her to work up to 23.75 hours a week, just shy of the 24 hours that in this particular company would entitle her to health and vacation benefits.

When Gin Kress, an unchaptered member in Lakeville, MN, looked for entry-level, part-time work in retail, she started with Target. She offered them school hours Monday to Friday and some weekends. Their computer wouldn’t even create a schedule unless she committed to a permanent weeknight, requiring child care the hourly wage wouldn’t cover. The grocery store only had a 6-9 a.m. opening and her husband’s company was only hiring for weekends, so Kress felt particularly lucky to find a position at Marshall’s where they jumped through hoops to work with her schedule. But she is not eligible for promotion unless she goes full time. She says that though “the pay is terrible,” worse than the other employers, “my family schedule was more important to me than pay.”

Esemplare, Kress and I are typical part-time workers. We’re women (72% of part-timers are women) and we’re trading off basic equity for positions that make it possible for us to fulfill responsibilities to our families.

In 2000, data from the National Compensation Survey showed that economy wide, part-timers earn an average $8.89 per hour versus $15.77 for full-timers—44% less. Part of this gap comes from part-time jobs being concentrated in lower-paying occupations, but that fact hits women harder too. The Economic Policy Institute reports that half of women who work part time work in only 10 of 236 possible industries —all of them the lowest-paying industries, such as education, nursing, department stores, restaurants and child care. Women do choose higher-paying jobs when they can work full time. As Kress experienced, when women want or need a schedule other than full time, their options are often limited to the lowest-paying jobs within a low-paying industry.

Esemplare and I have a lot of company in giving up health, retirement, vacation and sick leave. Only 17% of part-time workers receive health insurance benefits, while 59% receive health insurance through their spouses, often paying for the extra coverage. Only 21% of part-time workers are included in their employer’s pension plan. In fact, the federal law that governs employee benefits (ERISA) has thresholds that in effect prevent part-time workers from receiving pension benefits. Not only did Esemplare and I give up paid vacation or sick leave, but Esemplare wouldn’t be eligible for unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act since it effectively requires that someone work 25 hours a week for a year to be eligible.

Fortunately, Esemplare and Kress are still employed. When I was laid off, I was lucky to be in one of only 25 states where unemployment insurance covers part-time workers if they are able to show the need for part-time work. In half the states you have to be available for full-time work to qualify for unemployment insurance.

Mothers are usually the first to say they are “lucky” to have found part-time work even when they aren’t getting proportional pay, benefits or promotional opportunities. But there are plenty of people who believe it’s unfair. What happened to Esemplare, Kress and me has been illegal for decades in the United Kingdom where the guarantee of proportional pay and benefits for part-time work has been long established.

There may be hope that the United States is starting down this path, thanks to Linda Lovell. Lovell worked a 75% schedule, 30 hours a week, as an engineer for a subsidiary of Verizon Communications. Her salary was significantly less than 75% of the full-time salary of her co-worker, Charles McNamara. The Equal Pay Act says employers cannot pay an employee at a rate less than that paid to employees of the opposite sex for equal work, but when Lovell filed a lawsuit, her employer claimed that the difference in schedule meant that the Equal Pay Act did not apply. In 2003, however, the court decided that an employer’s justification for paying a lower rate has to be based on actual duties and training, and cannot be justified solely by arguing the woman works a reduced schedule.

As Joan Williams, author of Unbending Gender and director of the WorkLife Law Center, comments, “This case indicates that it’s not fair to pay a woman with the same skills and job a depressed wage because she’s working 30 hours a week. We have to realize that the traditional work schedule is designed around men’s typical life patterns. It doesn’t make sense to penalize a woman for not being able to work a schedule designed around men when they are doing the same work with the same training.”

This is an important but limited beginning. The Equal Pay Act only covers wages, not benefits or promotional opportunities. So what’s needed to make more progress? As Williams observes, “Until mothers believe it’s not fair, they’ll never convince the courts, or employers or policy makers that it’s not fair.”

That may seem like a tall order, but all Williams is asking us to do is examine our own beliefs. When we expand what we believe about work and fairness to include our own terms as caregivers, we start to make change in the quiet, stealthy ways this type of change often happens. Devra Renner, Northern Virginia, VA Chapter 143, says, “I feel that I have been successful at working part time on my own terms because I have been very clear about those terms at the time I interviewed.” Each time a mother asks clearly for what she believes is fair, the ripple effect benefits all of us.

If we are able to shift our thinking about what is fair, we also have to believe it is feasible, and it is. Meredith Stewart, also from Northern Virginia Chapter 143, works for the federal government 21 hours a week and reports that everything is pro-rated, one hour of vacation for every 10 hours worked, pro-rated retirement benefits, and the government pays a proportional amount of the health insurance premium.

On the second time around for me, my beliefs about both fairness and feasibility had changed. I was working off and on as a contractor for a foundation, and they wanted to hire me as a part-time employee. No benefits and lower pay than my contract fees. I resisted. We negotiated for weeks, until we agreed that I would remain a contractor for a maximum number of hours per month at a rate I felt would cover a proportional set of my own benefits. Now I work part time, and I feel both grateful AND fairly treated.

My 4-year-old is fixated on understanding the concept of “fairness.” She’ll ask me, “Mommy, what’s not fair?” so that from my stories she can try to figure it out. So let’s ask ourselves, what’s not fair? From our stories we can shift our beliefs about what is fair and gain confidence in what is feasible for each of us and for all of us.

Know and Do More

Are you working part time or considering it someday? Join the Mothers & More “Working at Home or Part Time” Member Loop to share your stories and get support from other members. If you propose part-time work to a new or existing employer, Cynthia Calvert, deputy director at the WorkLife Law Center, has this advice. First, work on your own mindset. Remember you are not asking for a favor or begging. What you’re asking for is fair. Remember the value you bring to the employer and the benefits to them when they retain good employees. Next, make a specific proposal about how to accomplish the work part time. Think about it from the employer’s perspective and anticipate objections. Finally, ask for more than you think you will get and make sure you are clear with the employer. Do you want me 70% or not at all? Often the boss is actually thinking the choice is between 70% and 100%. Know what your bottom line is, make it clear to the employer, and know when you are willing to walk away.

Learn negotiating skills. Some indications show that one reason women earn less is that they don’t ask, or they feel uncomfortable negotiating. A good place to start is with Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, which has videos, links, free downloads and books —including the bestseller, Getting to Yes. More resources and statistics about women and negotiation are available at the “Women Don’t Ask” website: www.womendontask.com.

Tell us about your experience with part-time work, what you believe is fair and feasible. Your story can be a motivation, inspiration and practical tool for other mothers. Plus, we’ll share your stories with the WorkLife Law Center so they can learn more about mothers’ experiences and thoughts about part-time work.