The aim of the paper is a gender analysis of the extent to which part-time work represents an individual’s preferred labor market situation. The work includes a theoretical model that delivers some predictions about the household’s preferences over non-chosen employment states. Furthermore, it explores the impact of individual, family and job related variables on the probabilities of involuntary and voluntary part-time employment in Spain. The main empirical findings of the paper are: first, the model is sensitive to the chosen definition of (voluntary) part-time employment; second, there exist important gender asymmetries in labour market behaviour concerning the importance of the individual’s education and family characteristics; third, the marital status and having small children are important determinants of a woman’s probability of being voluntary part-time employed, whereas having grown up children or a temporary contract increases significantly a woman’s probability of involuntary part-time employment.

Financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología and Feder Funds under project SEJ-2007-62656.