Not just mothers with small children but also young childless women in the Netherlands tend to work fewer than 35 hours a week, says the government’s social policy unit SCP in a new report on part-time working.

In total, 75% of Dutch women who work have jobs of fewer than 35 hours a week – twice the European average. The government has made getting more women into work a central part of its employment policies.
Compared with other western countries, many Dutch women do work, the SCP says – a major turnaround from the situation in the 1970s when only 30% of women had a job. And today three-quarters of Dutch women with young children are in work – up from 12% in the mid-1970s.
Nevertheless, a majority of the Dutch ‘feel it is best for children to be looked after exclusively by their own parents, and they are very reserved about formal childcare,’ the report says. ‘In addition, a third of women and more than half of men believe that women are better suited than men to looking after small children.’
Research by Ruigrok Netpanel on Tuesday showed that while 85% of men take extra days off when a new baby is born, only 30% structurally reduce their hours.