This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: In Switzerland, 40% of the working population works part-time, according to 2025 figures from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). Women account for the lion's share: 60% of women in the workforce are employed part-time, while only more than 1 in 5 men work part-time.
These figures place Switzerland second among the 38 countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in terms of part-time work, just behind the Netherlands. Jan Müller has investigated which factors influence men's preference for part-time work and their transition to this way of working. The research is published in the journal Community, Work & Family.
Müller, a sociologist based at the University of Zurich, and Youngjoo Cha, a professor at Indiana University Bloomington (United States), analyzed data from the FSO's Swiss Labor Force Survey, the Swiss Household Panel (University of Lausanne) and the Swiss Job Market Monitor (SJMM, University of Zurich). Their study brings together these statistics and surveys to investigate the social and occupational context. It covers a period of 16 years, from 2004 to 2020, long enough to observe the gradual evolution of working standards and arrangements.
At the individual level, the main variables are full-time or part-time employment and a preference for one or the other. Sociodemographic information such as age, the partner's employment status and salary was included. Job vacancies listed in the SJMM were also analyzed to examine workplace norms and arrangements.
This analysis, combined with responses from workers in the Swiss Household Panel, made it possible to calculate, for each occupation and each observation period, scores for "work devotion expectation," "work-life balance support" and attitudes toward "male breadwinner norms." This longitudinal database shows that nearly 10% of full-time workers develop a preference for part-time work each year. "That's a significant amount," Müller says. "At the same time, however, only 10% of those who say they would prefer to work part-time while currently working full-time actually take the step of reducing their hours.
That's not very many." Despite this low transition rate, the proportion of men working part-time is high in Switzerland by international standards. And it has doubled since 2000, rising from about 10% to more than 20%. Across the OECD, these figures have risen only slightly—from just over 8% to less than 13% between 2000 and 2025.
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