Moving Down: Women's Part‐Time Work and Occupational Change in Britain 1991–2001

We give a quantitative analysis of the nature of occupational change – based on the utilisation of skills – as women make the transition between full‐time and part‐time work. We show that one‐quarter of women moving from full‐ to part‐time work experience downgrading. Women remaining with their current employer are less vulnerable and the availability of part‐time opportunities is far more important than the presence of a pre‐school child in determining whether a woman moves to a lower‐skilled occupation. These findings indicate a loss of economic efficiency through the underutilisation of the skills of many of the women who work part‐time.