Seven out of ten permanent contracts for women in Malaga this year are part-time

The gender gap in the workplace has many faces. One of the ways in which it manifests itself is in recruitment. Whether it is full-time or part-time, with the consequences this necessarily has on the remuneration associated with each of the two types and the rights accrued with a view to retirement. According to statistics from Spain's Ministry of Labour, so far in 2025, up to August, while women in Malaga province have signed 69,714 permanent employment contracts, only 20,065 of them, that is less than 30%, are full-time. In contrast, the number of signed temporary (but permanent) contracts, which means women only work part of each year, exceeds 25,000 and the number of part-time contracts exceeds 24,500. This means that 70% of women who have signed a permanent work contract this year get to work either not all day or not all year round (often due to the seasonality of many jobs in certain sectors).

These figures contrast heavily with those for men. Among men, full-time contracts account for half of all permanent contracts signed: more than 49,600 out of more than 99,000. Then, for the men, there are 30,188 temporary contracts and 19,270 part-time contracts.

This is not something that happens exclusively in Malaga. Across Spain as a whole, the figures are very similar: of the 1.6 million permanent contracts awarded to women so far this year, just 511,727, or 31%, are for full-time jobs. In the case of men, meanwhile, 40-hour contracts (or whatever each collective bargaining agreement stipulates) account for more than 48% of the total.

In this regard, researchers at ISEAK, a social science research centre based in the Basque Country, have published a study analysing the factors behind part-time employment in Spain. In total, three out of every four part-time jobs in Spain are held by women. This, the analysts say, is a "highly involuntary" type of work that engenders precarious conditions of employment and contributes to in-work poverty. According to their findings, the high level of unwanted part-time employment in Spain is a European anomaly: only 14% of employment in Spain is part-time compared to 47% in the Netherlands, for example, and half of those working part-time in Spain only do so because they cannot find a full-time job.

According to their analysis, part-time jobs, and especially those held involuntarily, offer fewer opportunities for career advancement, require a higher level of physical effort and have less flexible working hours. Furthermore, the researchers assert that, since the minimum wage was raised in 2019, in-work poverty in Spain is no longer due to low wages, but to low work intensity. This is especially true for women. However, in general terms, according to ISEAK, "it is essential to push forward public policies that favour access to full-time jobs as a fundamental way to reduce in-work poverty, gender gaps and improve the wellbeing of the working population."

What happens in the case of contracts where part-time employment is combined with temporary, such as seasonal, employment? According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Labour, a total of 80,421 full-time contracts were signed in Malaga province. The majority, over 49,200, were signed by men, compared to 31,180 by women. Part-time contracts once again predominate among women, (37,872 such contracts).

There are also differences between men and women regarding the age at which there is a higher incidence of temporary contracts (now no longer limited to part-time work, under the new labour reforms this includes seasonal and other work that is not year-round): among men, the majority are under 25 years of age, while women aged over 45 are those most affected by temporary work.