Widows and widowers with young children should only be allowed to stay at home for two years after the death of their partner, according to junior social affairs minister Ahmed Aboutaleb. After that, they should go back to work or follow a training course.

The move is part of the junior minister’s proposed changes to the unemployment benefit system for widows and widowers, reports the Volkskrant. Under the current regulations they are entitled to the benefit until their children are 18.
The coalition government parties (Labour, Christian Democrats and orthodox Christian ChristenUnie) said the measure is ‘too tough’.
Aboutaleb (Labour) is about to leave his ministerial job to take over as Rotterdam mayor in January 2009.
‘He should not be introducing something like this at the last minute,’ the Volkskrant reported Labour MP Hans Spekman as saying.