The part-time pay penalty in a segmented labor market

Part-time work has recently received renewed attention in Spain as its Prime Minister, José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero, has offered to use part-time (PT) work as a measure to increase labor market flexibility in the midst of the current economic crisis. However, little is known in Spain on whether PT employment, which is mainly female employment, offers the opportunity for career progression or the risk of career stagnation in a country with a striking segmentation of its labor market. This paper uses a rich longitudinal Spanish data set to investigate the PT / full-time (FT) wage growth differential between prime-aged women strongly attached to the labor force, distinguishing by their type.