Economic and social dynamics of part-time employment law as policy within the European Community

• Main Author: Carter, Caitriona A.
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1994
• Subjects: 340
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.642647

This thesis explores the regulation of part-time employment, within a European Community (EC) context, examining law as an instrument of policy. The domestic policies of two Member States, the UK and France, are analysed as examples of alternative approaches to part-time employment. Conclusions drawn from such different national policies are re-explored at EC level, as is EC Part-Time Employment Policy itself, with the intention of explaining a weakened political interest in the regulation of part-time employment at EC level. The thesis adopts a distinct theoretical position to explore the complex interweaving of economic and social factors at two levels - firstly, at the level of theoretical conceptions of labour market functioning and part-time employment and secondly, at the level of national and EC law as policy. This position is reached by drawing together the findings made by the advanced form of Labour Market Segmentation theory, which points to a consequentialist understanding of labour market functioning. The focus is on two legal options of part-time employment policy - the application of Sex Equality Law and the application of the Principle of Non-Discrimination between Full- and Part-Time Workers. I analyse these routes from a consequentialist stance, taking issue with the causalist approach to both regulation and policy analysis. I find that, irrespective of whether a policy has an economic or social goal, it relies on a certain conceptualisation of labour market functioning. I argue that, at present, national and EC Social Policies fail to follow the consequentialist recognition of market functioning and that EC Social Policy is in addition dominated by the economic and social dynamics of internal market functioning.