Half of women are not financially independent

Some 54% of Dutch women depended on the state or another person for at least part of their upkeep in 2008, according to new research from the government’s socio-cultural planning agency SCP.

While two-thirds of women aged 15 to 65 work, 75% of them have a part-time job, and that figure increases the older they get, the SCP said.
In 2000, the government said it wanted to ensure 60% of women are financially independent by 2010.
‘That target is not realistic because not enough account was taken of part-time jobs,’ SCP researcher Wil Portegijs told the Volkskrant.
Lucia van Westerlaak of the trade union federation FNV said the Netherlands lags behind Scandinavian countries and the US. ‘The idea that women should take care of the children is much stronger in our culture than in those countries,’ she said.