Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, The Copenhagen Voice, 30 March 2009

Women work fewer hours than men. Women with small children or two or more children work fewer hours than other women. And people employed by local authorities work fewer hours than their privately employed colleagues. The option of adapting working hours to the needs of a family enables many women to combine job and children, says social research institute SFI.

Women work fewer hours than men and women with small children or two or more children work fewer hours than other women, says SFI - the Danish National Centre for Social Research, a sector research institution under the Ministry of Social Affairs - in a new report, ‘Danske lønmodtageres arbejdstid (Danish employees’ working hours)’.

The report also shows that people employed by local authorities work fewer hours than their privately employed colleagues.

The option of adapting working hours to the needs of a family is probably a contributing factor to the ability of many women to combine job and children, SFI says.

Statistics for hours worked and pay, gathered by Statistics Denmark in 2003-2006, show that salaried women work on 34.13 hours a week on average, while salaried men work 36.48 hours a week; hourly paid women work 28.49 hours a week on average, while hourly paid men work 31.84 hours a week.

The difference between the working hours rises when paid overtime is included: salaried men have 0.44 hours paid overtime a week, while salaried women have 0.19 hours a week; hourly paid men have 1.6 hours of paid overtime a week, while the figure is 0.57 for the women.

Not only do women work fewer hours a week than men, but families with children also work fewer hours than families without children: women with small children or two or more children work fewer hours than other women.

“It seems that women in particular adapt their working hours to the circumstances of their families, and this is probably one of the reasons why women work fewer hours than men,” said Mette Deding, a senior research at SFI who has been involved in the research project. “Employment of Danish women is high in an international context, so it seems that the option of adapting working hours to the needs of a family has great importance for so many Danish women’s ability to combine job with children.”

In addition, the statistics show, people employed by local authorities work fewer hours than their privately employed colleagues. Women in nursing and care work even fewer hours than other women.

SFI says that women’s working hours vary rather more than men’s, and the research centre ascribes this to factors such as employment sector (local authority or private), branch, education, job function and whether the family has children.

The average number of hours worked a week in the local authority sector is lower for both salaried and hourly paid employees than in the private sector, while the difference between the hours worked by men and women is greater and the variation in working hours is also greater.

For families, the statistics show the same types of difference found for individuals. Working hours are lower in families where at least one adult is trained in the health sector and in families where at least one adult is employed by a local authority than in other families.

Families with children work fewer hours than other families, and families with many children, or where the youngest child is under one year old, work fewer hours. The variations are primarily due to women’s working hours varying because of sector, number of children and age of the youngest child.

In addition, SFI says, the division of labour in a family seems to be mainly characterised by men not being very affected by children’s number or age, while women’s working hours vary more than men’s and are affected by family circumstances.