The feminisation of the weekend: a comparative analysis

Harriet B. Presser, University of Maryland
Janet Gornick, City University of New York at Baruch

This paper describes for the first time the extent to which the weekend employment is feminized among employees in 15 European countries and the United States. We consider trends over a 10-year period, 1992-2001, as well as separate analyses by economic sector and weekly work-hours for the most recent comparable year. We find that many European countries have experienced increasing feminization of weekend employment. However, it is not necessarily the more feminized countries with regard to employment that are more feminized with regard to weekend employment. Moreover, it matters whether one is considering Saturday or Sunday employment, as some countries relatively high on one are not on the other. It is the high weekend employment of women relative to men in the service sector—and not the industrial sector—that helps generate the disproportionate feminization of weekend employment more generally. But even within the service sector, weekend employment is highly feminized.