The Part-Time Wage Gap: a Career Perspective

Summary  Because promotions are an important source of wage growth, we argue that the low incidence of promotions among part-time workers will contribute to the emergence of the part-time wage gap. We test this claim using Dutch employer–employee matched data. We find that the part-time wage gap is absent among young school leavers, but that it is well established among more mature workers. Moreover, we find that promotions account for a wage growth of about eight log points. Finally, workers in part-time jobs experience a lower rate of promotion relative to workers in full-time jobs. We are grateful to the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment for granting access to the data. The paper greatly benefited from comments by Daniel Hamermesh, Jonathan Wadsworth, and seminar participants at ZEW in Mannheim, at WPEG conference at York University and Tilburg University. We are also indebted to two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions that substantially improved the quality of the paper. The usual disclaimer applies.