Part-time work is a comparatively recent concept that emerged alongside the spatial and functional separation of work and home during the Industrial Revolution. Historically, due to a combination of physical demands in many occupations and concerns about health, men were designated as workers in the labor market while women were responsible for domestic work — a division that gradually became entrenched and institutionally reinforced (Davies & Frink, 2014). This historical arrangement laid the foundation for organizational norms and expectations regarding availability, commitment, and career trajectories.

Acker’s (1990) concept of the idealized, disembodied male worker captures how these historical norms continue to structure contemporary organizations. Organizational hierarchies and career models are built around assumptions of unrestricted temporal availability, privileging workers who can devote their time entirely to paid work. Consequently, part-time workers — often women — are automatically assigned to lower ranks, leading to the marginalization of part-time work within organizations (Dick & Hyde, 2006; Nentwich & Hoyer, 2013).

These structural inequalities are sustained through organizational discourses, particularly those surrounding professionalism and ambition. Part-time work is often framed as an individual choice and as evidence of lower ambition, despite empirical evidence refuting such claims (Dick & Hyde, 2006). Importantly, ambition itself is socially constructed and closely tied to norms of temporal availability rather than objective performance (Benschop et al., 2013). By framing inequality as a consequence of individual preferences, organizations obscure the cultural and historical foundations of these norms.

From a Foucauldian perspective, such discourses function as mechanisms of power that produce subjectivities and legitimize hierarchical distinctions between workers (Foucault, 1977; Nentwich & Hoyer, 2013). As these norms primarily benefit traditional full-time male workers, it is not surprising that alternative discourses — such as work–life balance — trouble the work identities of some of these full-time professional groups (Meriläinen et al., 2004). This is particularly evident in traditionally male-dominated, high-status professional contexts, such as senior management, law, engineering, and medicine (Cha & Grady, 2024). Conversely, pressures to introduce family-friendly working arrangements are more likely to arise in organizations with higher proportions of women in professional and managerial roles (Dick & Hyde, 2006).

Critical is not only the context though, but how individuals position themselves in it (Dick & Hyde, 2006). Establishing and preserving a professional identity is an ongoing struggle for part-time employees (Hyde, 2008). These negotiations are inherently gendered, as men and women face different expectations and evaluations within gendered societal and organizational structures.

In contexts where ambition and professionalism are defined by expectations of unrestricted temporal availability, part-time workers must negotiate their professional identities. These negotiations are inherently gendered. While women do have to give up certain aspects of their professional identity, such as constant presence, they can align with the socially sanctioned discourse of motherhood, which frames women as the most competent and natural caregivers (Dick & Hyde, 2006). In fact, women may risk appearing to “sell their families short” if they display excessive ambition at work (Benschop et al., 2013). By positioning part-time work as a way to prioritize family responsibilities, women can maintain a socially accepted professional identity. Indeed, Swiss surveys show that women most frequently cite family responsibilities as their primary reason for working part-time (Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 2025b), highlighting how positioning within the discourse of motherhood may help explain the persistent gender gap in part-time employment.

Men, by contrast, have less freedom to adopt subject positions within parenting discourses, which are primarily targeted at women (Dick & Hyde, 2006). The ability and willingness to work full-time has become a marker of masculinity (Meriläinen et al., 2004). Swiss surveys indicate that men who work part-time perceive themselves as significantly more “feminine” than full-time men, particularly when working less than 50 percent. Among women, by contrast, there is no systematic relationship between work participation and perceptions of femininity (Hermann et al., 2021). To maintain professional legitimacy, men often frame part-time work in terms of career development or financial reasons (Smithson, 2005). Indeed, data from Switzerland indicate that, for men, reasons other than family — such as pursuing further education — are the most common reasons for working part-time (Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 2025b).

These gendered patterns of positioning are also reflected in organizational evaluations. As male part-time work more strongly deviates from normative expectations, it may more readily seen as a signal of low career commitment, potentially resulting in stronger negative consequences (Kopp, 2022). Studies have shown that men working part-time are perceived as less committed or motivated and therefore less likely to receive favorable performance appraisals or be recommended for a job compared to full-time employees and women working part-time (Beham et al., 2020; Pedulla, 2016). Similarly, managers may be less inclined to approve requests for part-time work from men (Klein et al., 2000). On the other hand, a more recent French study by Coron and Garbe (2023), finds no gender differences in career success expectations due to part-time work. Given Switzerland’s dominant breadwinner model, we nevertheless hypothesize:

Less is known about how decision-makers’ own gender may shape evaluations of part-time work. Since men have traditionally benefited from the hegemonic full-time norm, they may be more likely to enforce it (Meriläinen et al., 2004). Indeed, research has shown that female managers are generally more supportive of family-related requests from employees like part-time work (Devicienti et al., 2019) and are less likely to discriminate against flexible workers (Chung, 2020).

We further assume an interaction effect: Swiss men tend to hold more traditional gender role attitudes than women (Bornatici et al., 2020). As a result, male managers and HR professionals may see part-time work as more acceptable for women, consistent with traditional caregiving roles, leading to greater gendered differences in their assessments. Female decision-makers may assess part-time work more consistently across genders.

This mixed-methods study examines Swiss managers’ and HR professionals’ attitudes toward part-time employees, focusing on how these attitudes vary by the gender of both employees and decision-makers. Switzerland provides an interesting context, characterized by a persistent tension between traditional gender role norms and a growing emphasis on work–life balance and gender equality.

At first glance, the findings suggest a partial normalization of part-time work. The majority of decision-makers did not interpret part-time employment as a signal of low career commitment, indicating that the assumption that part-time workers are inherently less motivated is no longer a universally shared organizational norm. This reflects a gradual cultural shift in organizational perceptions of part-time work. However, this apparent normalization masks substantial gendered differences. Nearly 30% of organizational decision-makers perceive part-time work by men as a sign of low career commitment, compared to 16% who hold the same view about part-time work by women. While part-time work may have gained legitimacy in general, its evaluation remains deeply embedded in traditional gender role expectations.

The qualitative findings illuminate how this discrepancy is produced in everyday organizational practice. Although most decision-makers presented part-time work as a viable option for both genders in their company, stating that no differences are made in the treatment of male and female employees, underlying accounts revealed persistent gendered patterns in its practical implementation. Part-time employment is predominantly associated with women, who reduce their working hours for caregiving and domestic responsibilities — a process often framed as natural. Several interviewees explicitly noted that exceptions are made for working mothers, allowing for reduced workloads; however, no comparable accommodations were mentioned for men.

The quantitative findings reinforce these qualitative insights. Male part-time work is significantly more likely to be interpreted as a lack of career commitment than female part-time work, therefore confirming H1. Furthermore, male decision-makers are more likely to view part-time work as a sign of lacking career commitment than female decision-makers, supporting H2. However, the interaction Hypothesis H3 could not be confirmed: both male and female decision-makers were similarly inclined to view male part-time employees as less committed to their careers than female part-time workers.

Together, these findings indicate that while part-time work as such has become more normalized, its acceptance remains deeply embedded in traditional gender role frameworks. Male part-time work deviates from the breadwinner norm and is therefore more readily interpreted as a signal of insufficient commitment, a pattern consistent with prior research (Beham et al., 2020; Pedulla, 2016). What distinguishes the present findings, however, is not merely the persistence of gendered evaluations, but the way in which they coexist with an explicit, seemingly internalized discourse of gender equality and work–life balance.

Across interviews, decision-makers repeatedly articulate gender-equal access to part-time work as an important organizational value. Contemporary equality and work–life balance discourses have clearly entered organizational talk and are competently mobilized by organizational actors. Yet in concrete evaluations, gendered patterns in the assessment of the commitment of part-time workers persist. Crucially, the data reveals a striking absence of acknowledged agency among decision-makers. Although interviewees frequently recognized that traditional gender norms embedded in organizational cultures shape the acceptance and evaluation of part-time work, responsibility for these patterns was consistently externalized. Agency was either naturalized — by framing women’s caregiving as biologically or psychologically inherent — or displaced, rendering gendered inequalities to be dealt with by unnamed others. From a Foucauldian perspective (1977), this combination of awareness without reflexive engagement is particularly consequential, as it allows gendered power relations to be reproduced while appearing both inevitable and/or already resolved. These findings closely align with Joan Acker’s (1990) concept of gendered organizations, which posits that gender inequality persists precisely because organizations present themselves as neutral and egalitarian while everyday practices remain gendered.

Notably, the lack of agency was not confined to male decision-makers. Although women expressed fewer overtly discriminatory views overall, female decision-makers did not shield male part-time workers from negative evaluations. This finding aligns with research showing that women are not less likely than men to engage in stereotype-consistent judgments, particularly when evaluating norm-deviating men (Rudman & Mescher, 2013). It underscores how deeply embedded gender norms are and how they are reproduced even by those who are themselves disadvantaged by them. Looking ahead, the increasing presence of younger generations who value work–life balance might be expected to erode these differences. However, research suggests that in Switzerland, younger cohorts — despite being socialized in more egalitarian contexts — often exhibit more traditional gender attitudes than their predecessors (Bornatici et al., 2020). Thus, assumptions that generational turnover alone will resolve the issue appear overly optimistic.

Crucially, the qualitative findings show that the gendering of part-time work and career commitment varies across organizational contexts. It is particularly pronounced in male-dominated fields, where masculine organizational cultures and breadwinner norms remain deeply embedded in everyday practices, as described by Cha and Grady (2024). In female-dominated, lower-paid sectors such as nursing and cleaning, part-time work is widely accepted, including in leadership roles. As a result, work–life balance discourses have reduced vertical segregation of part-time work — that is, differences in status or leadership opportunities — within feminized fields. However, as flexibility remains concentrated mainly in feminized, socially less-valued sectors, masculine ideals of availability and career commitment persist in higher-status male-dominated domains. Consequently, part-time work continues to reinforce horizontal segregation — that is, the division of work across sectors — risking the maintenance rather than the reduction of existing gendered divisions of labor and opportunity. This aligns with prior research suggesting that simply offering part-time options is insufficient; without addressing cultural assumptions about commitment and career progression, part-time work remains marginalized in contexts anchored in full-time ideals (Kelly et al., 2010).