Part-time and flexible work for everybody (who wants it, parents and non-parents, alike).
UTRECHT, NETHERLANDS — Remco Vermaire is ambitious and, at 37, the youngest partner in his law firm. His banker clients expect him on call constantly — except on Fridays, when he looks after his two children.
Fourteen of the 33 lawyers in Mr. Vermaire’s firm work part time, as do many of their high-powered spouses. Some clients work part time, too.
“Working four days a week is now the rule rather than the exception among my friends,” said Mr. Vermaire, the first man at Wijn & Stael Advocaten to take a “daddy day” in 2006. Within a year, all the other male lawyers with small children in his firm had followed suit.
For reasons that blend tradition and modernity, three in four working Dutch women work part time. Female-dominated sectors like health and education operate almost entirely on job-sharing as even childless women and mothers of grown children trade income for time off. That has exacted an enduring price on women’s financial independence….
.. Twenty-three percent of Dutch men have reduced hours, compared to 10 percent across the European Union and in the United States; another nine percent work a full week in four days.
But this example of work flexibility for Dutch women and men is raising some interesting questions, too.
According to Ellen de Bruin, the author of “Why Dutch Women Don’t Get Depressed,” Dutch women don’t seem to mind too much. She notes that 96 percent of Dutch part timers tell pollsters they do not want to work more; the Netherlands is that rare country where — even taking housework and child care into account — women work less than men.
A 2006 study showed that only 16 percent of Dutch urban women aim to reach the top and just 10 percent would sacrifice family time for a career. “We always rank low in the gender equality rankings,” said Ms. de Bruin, a journalist, “ but we rank high on happiness.”
In our family, I work three days a week outside the home and in addition to that do odd bits of freelance writing from home. Bill works five days a week, with one of those days being from home, and he also does a small number of hours of consultancy work after-hours. In my workplace, flexible arrangements are reasonably common, though individuals have varying degrees of success in negotiating them. Bill was the first employee to negotiate a work-from-home day in his workplace, for either male or female employees, and I think it would be fair to say that there was some nervousness on the part of his employer when they were agreeing to it. But a year in and all expectations have been met and his arrangement has been extended for another year.
I tell you, job flexibility is seriously the secret to our sunny dispositions.
blue milk 
We are just beginning the negotiations of flexible work/reduced hours/childcare to manage two careers and a four month old. My work has been pretty supportive – I dropped by ongoing job down to 0.4, then was offered a second 0.5 one year contract doing what I really want to do (same workplace, different area). This could make my career long term, so I said yes on the proviso that I could work from home on non-contact days (and luckily, bub is reasonably chilled about hanging in the office at times). On the other hand, my partner’s work has been useless – despite ‘family friendliness’, 3 months of negotiating has produced a week by week solution of cobbled together overtime, rostered days off and weekend work to get him two afternoons per week of childcare. Grrr.
I’ll just go back to fantasising about Europe.
(And first time commenter, long time lurker – feminist parenting blogs are keeping me sane, so thank you.)
the Netherlands is that rare country where — even taking housework and child care into account — women work less than men.
I think the highlighted part is probably key. Gender equality is about more than who decides to aim for the top of the corporate ladder.
I would love for this to be standard across the industrialized world. I think with the present state of economic disparity though, it would mean only a small percentage of people would be able to afford the reduced hours. Working from while more convenient means that you would probably need to have the kids in school full-time already. My unhusband works only 4 days a week so that he can have more family time but I know that is a symbol of our privilege. We always talk about the importance of family but do precious little to support it. I don’t think we need the kind of society where people are working they way they do. It is a matter of setting priorities.
After my first child was born, I went to a 35 hour week (basically, every other Friday off) and I loved it. Unfortunately, the job itself was boring, so I moved to a different company and had to go back to 40 hour weeks. However, I have fairly flexible hours, and so does my husband. We don’t have huge commutes (less than 30 minutes most days), and we make enough money to buy some time in the form of a housecleaning service and not worrying about money when buying groceries- so what if that preshredded cheese is 3x the money?
I’m still pretty happy with my home-work balance. To me, the secret is having boundaries and not catching grief at work for sticking to them. Luckily, most of my workmates and all of my bosses judge on productivity, not the fact that I leave at 4:30 every day to go pick up the kids from day care.
What I want is for the combination of things that make me a happy working mom to be more normal and less luck.
De-lurking to make a comment on this post. I currently live in the Netherlands and we’re expecting our first child, so this issue has come up for discussion already. The company my husband works for would most surely allow him to work four days a week instead of five, and we’re both thrilled with that.
However, not every sector is so accommodating. I don’t see a possibility for reduced hours or part-time work when I enter the workforce (finishing my doctorate at the moment). The cost of childcare is quite high here, and the government is working to end/reduce subsidies for it. I’ve also noticed that most daycare facilities open later and close earlier than what I was accustomed to seeing in the U.S., making it difficult to get in a full workday at the office.
I think it can be very hard for women to get ahead here or work their way up the career ladder if they do not work in women-dominated sectors. Still, I am glad that my husband wants to and is able to reduce his hours at work to stay at home with our child. I hope that we’ll be able to find a balance between home and work life that works for us.
My (newish) workplace is the most flexible I’ve seen and it’s not the norm here. People I talk to about it outside of work are amazed, yet it’s not that hard and I would love to see more workplaces do it. It’s also one of the most creative and productive workplaces I’ve been in. I currently work adjusted hours so that I’m still doing an 80 hour fortnight but have every second Friday off. I’d like to drop down to four days a week and will talk to them about that when I’ve been there a bit longer. The good thing is that I know they will be fine with the discussion. There are a couple of other parents of young kids, men and women alike, who arrange their work hours to leave early on certain days or who work three days a week. People returning from parental leave also often negotiate different hours to suit their new family situation.
I have been ranting about this ever since I became a mother. I would be a much happier mother if my work-life balance was balanced. And even happier if my husband’s work -life balanced could be balanced. Why can’t we share parental leave? Why can’t we both work flexibly/part time/job share? It’s my biggest bugbear about motherhood.
I live in London however; where our backward culture doesn’t give a fig for working families. It’s all money, money, money. You need two incomes to buy a house these days. Stay at home parents are becoming a thing of the past because we can’t afford to.
I have to stop myself now before I go all ranty……
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