Improving the quality of part-time opportunities for second earners is crucial to reducing child poverty, according to a new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Building A Sustainable Quality Part-time Recruitment Market.

The report shows that the part-time recruitment market is skewed strongly in favour of vacancies with salaries below £20,000 full-time equivalent earnings. It found that resistance to part-time recruitment was highest among employers who had not previously recruited part-time staff at over £20,000 full-time equivalent earnings. The report argues that:

• to stimulate the part-time market, the debate around part-time working needs to move away from new regulation and towards the business benefits of flexibility. Employers need to be convinced of the quality of part-time candidates and to see hard evidence that it can work for their business.
• childcare will also be key, and a decision would need to be made by politicians (not to mention parents) that a ‘one and a half earner’ model is desirable.

The report, Building A Sustainable Quality Part-time Recruitment Market, and a related blog, Can parents work their way out of poverty?, can be found on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website.

See also:

An earlier report (2010) by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research on whether people are better off in work than on benefits, The Better-off in Work Credit.