WP 36 - Women's Preferences or Delineated Policies? The development or part-time work in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom



Mara Yerkes & Jelle Visser

2. General Developments

Female labour force participation rates increased throughout the last decades across Europe and
there are a number of general explanations for this phenomenon. The introduction of the birth
control pill was a foremost factor, as well as changes to household size, a postponement of
motherhood, and a lessening of time spent on household chores. Economically, we also know that a
number of factors increased the cost of remaining at home, making it more attractive for women to
enter the labour market. Women’s continued participation in higher education, rising wages and
legislative changes in tax systems, employment protection and wage setting, meant to decrease or
rule out the discrimination many women faced in the labour market, served to entice women to
take part in paid labour. These developments were similar in the Netherlands, Germany and the
United Kingdom, although initial levels, the timing and nature of policies varied across countries, as
did the resulting increase in female labour market participation.

Female labour market participation was slow to increase in the Netherlands, and it was not until the
1980s that women entered paid labour in large numbers. This development began in the 1960s in
the UK and the 1970s in West Germany.
2 In 2003, women’s labour force participation rates are
higher than the EU-15 average of 61.3 per cent in all three case countries (see Figure 1). The UK has
the highest labour force participation of the three countries at 69.2, followed by the Netherlands at
68.4 and Germany with 64.5 per cent. In the Netherlands female participation rates increased with
16 percentage points since 1990, in Germany with 9 and in the UK with 2 points (OECD, 2004).

2 As will be discussed in section 4.1, due to the full employment policy in communist East Germany, levels of female labour market
participation were much higher than in West Germany. Even following reunification, the labour market participation rates of East German
women remain higher than those of W est German women.

11


AIAS - UvA



More intriguing information

1. The name is absent
2. The name is absent
3. Estimated Open Economy New Keynesian Phillips Curves for the G7
4. Corporate Taxation and Multinational Activity
5. Parent child interaction in Nigerian families: conversation analysis, context and culture
6. The name is absent
7. The name is absent
8. Multi-Agent System Interaction in Integrated SCM
9. The name is absent
10. PACKAGING: A KEY ELEMENT IN ADDED VALUE
11. Regionale Wachstumseffekte der GRW-Förderung? Eine räumlich-ökonometrische Analyse auf Basis deutscher Arbeitsmarktregionen
12. Two-Part Tax Controls for Forest Density and Rotation Time
13. Public-private sector pay differentials in a devolved Scotland
14. The name is absent
15. Improvement of Access to Data Sets from the Official Statistics
16. Neighborhood Effects, Public Housing and Unemployment in France
17. What Contribution Can Residential Field Courses Make to the Education of 11-14 Year-olds?
18. Personal Experience: A Most Vicious and Limited Circle!? On the Role of Entrepreneurial Experience for Firm Survival
19. The name is absent
20. Quelles politiques de développement durable au Mali et à Madagascar ?