Wage differentials between full-time and part-time employment

The main objective of this work is to estimate the wage differential between part/full time workers, decomposing this differential among the factors that contribute moss to explaining it. Using data from the European Household Panel and an extended sample for the year 2000 and another for the period 1995-2000, we estimate wage equations for each working regime separately for men and women, correcting the selection bias by using the two-step method proposed by Heckman. The results show that the wage differential between full-time and part-time work is mainly due to differences in their characteristics, especially in experience, marital status, and tenure for men and in occupation, type of contract and educational level for women. However, the differences in returns contribute to reducing the wage differential between men and women, which implies rejecting the existence of wage discrimination against part-time workers.