Part-time employment and the great recession in Spain

The main objective of this study is to explore the determinants of the rise in part-time employment over the Great Recession in Spain, and in particular on the patterns of change by gender of non-desired part-time jobs. We use microdata from the Labor Force Survey for the period 2008-2014 and use a two-step modelling estimation method based on J. J. Heckman’s article ‘Sample selection bias as a specification error’ (Econometrica, 1979) as in A. E. Green and I. Livanos’ work ‘Involuntary Non-Standard Employment and the Economic Crisis: Regional Insights from the UK’ (Regional Studies, 2015).  This method is adopted when the endogenous variable of interest (i.e., involuntary part-time employment) is only observable for a selected sample (having an involuntary part time job requires first that the individual decides to be part of the labor market).

Preliminary results show that the recession effect augmented the probability of having an involuntary part-time job by about 6.5 percent in 2014 as compared to 2008, after controlling for regional, personal and socioeconomic characteristics. Moreover, they suggest the existence of a gender gap in involuntary or non-desired part-time employment that these characteristics cannot explain. Specifically, a woman with the same characteristics as a man is 8 percent more likely to have an involuntary part-time job.

Given the heterogeneity of active employment policies across the Spanish regions (Comunidades Autónomas), our next goal is to undertake a regional comparative study of the recession effect. With this aim we expect to shed light on the ongoing political debate about the failure of recent labor market reforms (one in 2010 by the Socialist Party and another one in 2011 by the Popular Party) and the necessity of another labor market reform.