The number of hours worked by mothers has gone up by 50% over the past 10 years to an average of 16.4 hours, according to national statistics office calculations for the Volkskrant.

And while 10 years ago, some 50% of mothers did not work, that figure has now shrunk to 28%, the paper says.
Dutch women work an average of 26 hours a week, while working mothers spend nearly 23 hours on the job, so there is little difference now between women with and without children, the paper points out.
Nevertheless, the government has made getting more mothers to join the labour force one of its central strategies to boost employment rates.
Since 2007, all primary schools have to provide after-school supervision, but the CBS said it was too early to say what effect that had had on women’s participation in the labour market.
‘The trend was in motion long before the cabinet became active,’ CBS researcher Johan van der Valk told the paper.
Demand for formal childcare has led to a €1bn overspend in the education ministry budget, the paper says. The number of applications for a pre-school crèche place is up 20%. For after-school care the increase is 30% and waiting lists are growing.
Parents pay on average 19% of the cost themselves, compared with 37% in 2005.