  Seeking to determine which working patterns have a specific effect on
part-time work, in 1998-99 France's INSEE statistical agency carried out a
Timetable survey that questioned the homogeneity of this form of employment
(again in terms of the working patterns upon which it is based). A neuronal
method was used to classify an entire sample of part-time employees according
to their weekly working patterns -the end result being that part-time work was
shown to be a very heterogeneous form of employment. This was not only
reflected by the existence of many different groups of part-time employees,
each with highly differentiated individual and professional characteristics,
but also (and above all) by the diversity of their weekly working patterns.
