Does part-time employment status really reduce time pressure?

Part-time employment rates are increasing in Australia, for both women and men. However, gendered patterns in part-time employment status are typically associated with mothers’, rather than fathers’, transition to parenthood. This study uses data from the 2006 Negotiating the Life Course survey to investigate whether part-time employment reduces time pressure for women compared to men, when temporal job quality is considered. Our results show that women employed in shorter part-time hours had better time pressure outcomes, overall and at work, than women employed in longer part-time hours. Yet findings show that a lack of access to temporal flexibility and irregular work schedules negatively impact time pressure outcomes for both men and women. We conclude that time pressure benefits gained from being employed part-time, may be diminished when there is poor temporal job quality.