Underemployment in a gender segregated labour market

Abstract

This article analyses factors behind underemployment in Norway and has a focus on gender. The analysis, based on Labour Force Survey data, shows that economic fluctuations during the latest one and a half decade bring about changing underemployment levels of both women and men. The Norwegian labour market is strongly gender segregated and the processes and characteristics of underemployment differ between male and female dominated labour market sectors. The former sectors are generally more exposed or sensitive to economic fluctuations than the latter. It is indicated that underemployed men are predominantly temporarily expelled on part-time basis from their jobs, while women are to a larger extent permanently excluded from longer working-hour contracts in their jobs.