The author aims to explain the differences between European countries in the proportion of women working part-time and, more generally, to develop a theoretical approach for cross-national comparison of women's employment patterns. The concepts of a ‘gender contract’ and of the ‘family and integration model’ are used.
It becomes clear that, in Germany, part-time work has been an important means for the modernisation of the gender contract concerning the family and integration model during the tertiarisation process. In Finland, where a family model based on partnership dominates, the sociocultural and institutional basis for this form of employment is almost entirely lacking. Tertiarisation did not lead to an expansion of part-time employment.
It is argued that sociohistorical factors related to the industrialisation process are highly significant in the explanation of these differences. It is possible to distinguish ideal-typically two different models of the development of the industrial society, in which those factors are shaped and combined in a characteristic way. These different models lead to different types of gender contract and different chracteristic patterns of labour force behaviour, by women, in the transition to a service society.
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