Good, bad, and not so sad part-time employment

With increases in part-time employment, the need to understand its diverse forms is growing. The aim of this study is to develop a typology of part-time employment on the basis of role occupancy and work characteristics. Latent class analysis was applied to data from a sample of 1826 part-time workers. The pattern of conditional probabilities suggests four types of part-time employment: Good, bad, student, and transition. Further analysis indicates that gender, age, education, seniority, and work experience are correlates of being in one or other types of part-time employment. Finally, good part-time employment is associated with higher job satisfaction and health although better health is reported in student part-time employment.