Constructing the Part-Time Burden: Economic Rationality, Responsibility, and Gender in Germany

Sammanfattning

This study examines how part-time work is discursively constructed and contested in the German political debate following the CDU's proposal to limit the right to part-time work in January 2026. Situated in the context of demographic change and labour shortages, the proposal frames part-time employment primarily as an economic burden – a framing that raises questions about how economic productivity, responsibility, and care work are negotiated in political discourse, and which perspectives are marginalised in the process. Drawing on Fairclough's three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis, which allows for the simultaneous examination of linguistic choices, discursive practices, and broader social structures, the study analyses the political debate at the institutional level. The findings reveal three central dimensions. First, while the meaning of part-time work is intensely contested, the CDU's framing of part-time work as an economic burden remains hegemonic, as opposing parties do not fundamentally challenge the underlying assumption that increased working hours are necessary. Second, competing actors attribute responsibility differently – either to individual workers or to structural constraints – yet both sides remain within the same economic rationality. Third, although care work and gender are acknowledged, they are systematically backgrounded, and the part-time trap associated with female part-time employment remains largely invisible. Together, these findings illustrate how political discourse can obscure structural gender inequalities while simultaneously shaping the boundaries of what is politically questionable – with direct consequences for the millions of women whose working and living conditions are affected by part-time regulation in Germany.