The Right to Part-Time Work under German Law: Progress in or a Boomerang for Equal Employment Opportunities?

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Abstract
As a contribution to job creation and equal employment opportunities for men and women a general ‘right to part‐time work’, modelled upon the right to adapt working time under Dutch law, has been introduced in Germany on the occasion of the implementation of Directive 97/80/EC on part‐time. This article explains the details of the right to part‐time work and questions its positive impact on employment opportunities for women. The article begins by illuminating the legal and political background of the introduction of the right to part‐time work. It then examines its preconditions as applicability, procedural and substantive requirements, and the employer's options to react. As to the limits on the right to part‐time work, one of the most discussed problems is its relation to the entrepreneurial freedom to organise the enterprise. The article shows that the right to part‐time work has to be interpreted as restricting this freedom. It then addresses two other statutory provisions, passed only a few weeks earlier, granting a right to part‐time work for specific groups of employees (disabled persons and parents of children under three). The following section deals with a right which is at least as important as the right to part‐time work but has not gained similar attention: the right to extend individual working time, as guaranteed in the same Act. In the penultimate section the competences of the works council as regards the right to part‐time work are examined. The article concludes with a few sceptical remarks with regard to the expected positive impact on equal employment opportunities for men and women.

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