Hipp Lena, Kelley Kristin
University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Berlin, Germany.
PLoS One. 2025 May 14;20(5):e0322871. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0322871. eCollection 2025.
This paper examines gender differences in paid work over time and illustrates the pitfalls encountered by any comparative research that only considers either labor force participation rates or average working hours. To do so, we analyze harmonized survey data from Europe and the United States from 1992 to 2022 (N = 43,283,172) and show that more progress was made in closing gender gaps in labor force participation rates than in working hours. In most countries, women's labor force participation rates increased considerably, but their average working hours decreased, whereas both men's labor force participation rates and average working hours decreased or stagnated (but nonetheless still remained much higher than women's). We show and argue that these countervailing trends in working hours and labor force participation rates make it difficult to paint a coherent picture of cross-national differences in women's and men's paid work and of changes over time. In response, we propose "work volume" as a supplementary or alternative measure for any type of comparative research. Work volume records zero working hours for nonemployed individuals and thus allows straightforward comparisons between women's and men's (or any other groups') involvement in paid work. Using the proposed work volume measure, we show that gender gaps in paid work decreased over time, but that even in 2022, men's involvement in paid work remained considerably higher than women's-with gender gaps being lowest in the Scandinavian and the former Communist countries.
本文考察了有偿工作中性别差异随时间的变化情况，并说明了任何仅考虑劳动力参与率或平均工作时长的比较研究中所遇到的陷阱。为此，我们分析了1992年至2022年欧洲和美国的协调调查数据（N = 43,283,172），结果表明，在缩小劳动力参与率方面的性别差距上取得的进展比在工作时长方面更多。在大多数国家，女性劳动力参与率大幅上升，但平均工作时长却减少了，而男性的劳动力参与率和平均工作时长则下降或停滞（但仍远高于女性）。我们指出并认为，工作时长和劳动力参与率的这些相反趋势使得难以描绘出男女有偿工作的跨国差异以及随时间变化的连贯图景。作为回应，我们提出“工作量”作为任何类型比较研究的补充或替代指标。工作量将未就业者的工作时长记录为零，从而可以直接比较男女（或任何其他群体）参与有偿工作的情况。使用提议的工作量指标，我们表明有偿工作中的性别差距随时间有所缩小，但即使在2022年，男性参与有偿工作的程度仍远高于女性，斯堪的纳维亚国家和前共产主义国家的性别差距最小。
