Part time vs full time – the advantages

Part time working is anything less than the standard working week of 35-40 hours, and it undoubtedly offers many advantages over working full time. Working part time can be the perfect solution to balancing your work and personal/family commitments, especially if you have children or have to care for a family member. More and more employers are realising that part-time working, job sharing and flexible working actually make good business sense so, as a consequence, there are many more options available to work part time and earn extra income.

If you work full time you are fully committed to being part of the rat race, the pressure of getting out of the house at a certain time, jostling for position on packed trains, always watching the clock because you have to be there on time. You do your eight hours and then commute back home, maybe shopping for groceries on the way, and you’ve still got to cook dinner, do the washing and ironing.

And then there’s working part time. If you’re working for yourself, then you can set your working hours to suit you and step back from the rat race a little. Suddenly there’s more time to get all the domestic chores done, you have more quality time to yourself and, if you have children, you actually get to see them during the week – you could even take them to school or collect them. And if you are your own boss, you may well be working from home, so no more commuting, no expensive season ticket to buy, and the time you would normally spend travelling is there to be used for a more useful purpose.

Working part time is not for everyone. Some people prefer the security of a full time job, but these days security is not guaranteed. Working part time also means you can take on more than one job – if one doesn’t work out, you have something else to fall back on. And working part time can actually be far less stressful which means a greater sense of happiness and wellbeing.