Mara Yerkes & Jelle Visser
3. The Netherlands
As indicated in the introduction, the Netherlands is an outlier in Europe with regard to part-time
employment, but it was not until the 1980s that the Netherlands took over the first place occupied
at that time by Sweden, Denmark and the UK. During the 1980s the growth of part-time
employment accelerated in tandem with the rise in female and service employment. The initial
diffusion of part-time employment was mostly the unintended consequence of the late entry of
women into the labour force, following the rise in education and a shift in values, at a time of fewer
employment opportunities, wage moderation and policy pressures towards the redistribution of
work (Visser and Hemerijck, 1997; Visser, 2002). The absence of facilities and support for childcare
made part-time employment the dominant coping solution for mothers. The part-time option was
reinforced by the labour market adversity and by wage moderation of the 1980s, stimulating the
need for extra earnings to the household. Employers saw part-time employment as a flexible,
reversible and individual solution for work sharing and an alternative to collective working time
reduction wanted by the trade unions. Public sector employers saw it as a way to save money
without having to dismiss employees. Young women wanting or raising children, especially those
working in the public sector, saw it as a way to hold on to their jobs and continue their career
rather than retiring temporarily from the labour market as had been common for their mothers.
Politicians, both left and right, saw it as a method of work sharing in times of high (youth)
unemployment and as an alternative to expensive public facilities for childcare. After initial resistance
against part-time work, associated with inferior working conditions, the Dutch trade unions came
around in support, often under pressure of their female members. Towards the end of the 1980s,
with collective working time reduction on the back burner, Dutch trade unions began to encourage
the “normalisation” of part-time work, working towards equal rights and pay compared to full-time
workers, the right of choice of employees, and similar levels of protection. They also pressed for
better leave facilities for parents with young children and for public subsidies and employer
investment in childcare. Several central agreements with employers in the 1990s tried to put these
issues on the agenda of lower-level bargainers in sectors and firms.
The Netherlands comes from a deeply, socially and culturally embedded model of housewifery
(Knijn, 1994; Pfau-Effinger, 1998). In 1965, 84 percent of the adult Dutch population expressed
reservations concerning working mothers of school-going children. In 1970, disapproval suddenly
dropped to 44 percent, decreasing to a mere 18 percent in 1997 (SCP, 1998). It is useful to point
out that the change in opinion preceded the improvement in services and conditions facilitating the
combination of work and childcare. The same goes for institutional factors. Relative wages and
returns from labour are influenced by institutional factors such as government and union wage
policies, taxation, and employment bans. All this changed, often under pressure of relevant EU law.
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