This text reassesses the competing theories and conflicting perspectives so far offered on the growth of part-time work among women. It concludes that part-time work does not equalize women's position vis a vis full-time workers, nor does it leave women in part-time jobs wholly marginalized.

1. Introduction: A Comparative Perspective on Part-Time Work ; 2. A Sociological Perspective on Part-Time Work ; 3. Part-Time Work in Central and Eastern European Countries ; 4. Full and Part-Time Employment of Women in Greece: Trends and Relationships with Life-Cycle Events ; 5. Part-Time Work in Italy ; 6. The Family Cycle and the Growth of Part-Time Female Employment in France: Boon or Doom? ; 7. Part-Time Work in West-Germany ; 8. Female Labour Market Participation in the Netherlands: Developments in the Relationship between Family Cycle and Employment ; 9. Part-Time Work Among British Women ; 10. Women's Employment and Part-Time Work in Denmark ; 11. Managing Work and Children: Part-Time Work and the Family Cycle of Swedish Women ; 12. Part-Time Work in the United States of America ; 13. Women's Part-Time Employment and the Family Cycle: A Cross-National Comparison

`an excellent overview of trends and patterns in part-time work and the explanatory factors behind woemen's labor market decisions ... refreshing reading.' Review of Social Economy `This particular collection of studies ... succeeds ... in providing focused and rigorously researched detail on the radical change that has occurred in women's family roles and labour market participation since the Second World War ... the analytical standard is uniformly high ... for serious students of the labour market in a global context and the speical role played within it by married women since the 1950s this is an essential and rewarding read, worthy of collective effort so conscientiously deployed.' W R Garside, Labour History Review, Vol 64, No 2, Summer 1999 "...this is both an informative and challenging collection." Journal of Social Policy April 1999 `an impressive cross-national study of the long-term development of part-time work in Europe and the United States ... This book is an important contribution to our understanding of part-time work and women's employment across countries and over time ... contains useful statistics and analyses of part-time work in European countries and the United States, and I can recommend it to anyone interested in labor markets, family research, and comparative welfare state research.' Gunn Elizabeth Birkelund, American Journal of Sociology