This book presents a wide-ranging survey of the major issues concerning the recent growth of part-time employment in industrialized societies. It examines many of the debates, analysing different circumstances in countries ranging from the US, the UK, Japan and France. The book presents for the first time a systematically comparative analysis of the common and divergent patterns in the use of part-time work in Europe, America and the Pacific Rim. Part-time Prospects brings together sociologists and economists to provide an up-to-date summary of the major theoretical debates on the changing organization of work and time, tackling such areas as gender issues, ethnic questions and the differences between certain national economies. Is this kind of work becoming an increasingly normal part of most people's working lives, or does it remain a female ghetto of low pay, low pensions and low labor standards?