
Dutch Women work less, have a big gender pay gap, and they love it - db42
http://www.slate.com/id/2274736/
======
maxklein
It's difficult to be an ambitious person and also be very gentle and caring.
One requires focus on the needs of other people, the other require focusing on
your own needs and riding over people.

Gender roles and families allow the existence of both emotional states within
one entity - it is possible for a family to be made up of both a very human
side and a very aggressive side. This maximises the success potential of a
family unit - one half can be ambitiously working towards acquiring more,
while the other can be ambitiously working towards building closer family ties
and emotional support.

When both parts of the family are aggressively working towards acquiring more,
the softness of a family gets lost. There is less emotional dependence, less
of one person doing one thing, and more of two people who have a lot of
potential to be at loggerheads with one another.

Raising a family and acquiring a lot of money require completely different
emotional outlooks, and I believe that there are not many people who can make
the switch from roughriding for money to being tender at home.

Families need two different people fulfilling different roles to be
successful. That's the evolutionary method, that's the method that is
culturally agnostic and that has taken us as humans this far. Intellectually
trying to force a different system to exist is causing unhappy societies and
break-ups of family units that used to be happy.

When couples say the other half completes them, they mean that the other
person fills in some parts that they lack, they don't mean that the other is
exactly the same as they are.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Even if those two kinds of roles were as incompatible as you claim, which I
don't believe for a second, why would the separation of roles run along gender
lines instead of individual preferences?

It seems to me that you are implying a natural suitability and inclination of
women for being gentle and caring and a natural ability of men to be totally
focused assholes taking on all the intellectual challenges.

~~~
TheSOB88
Are you saying that's not true? Certainly males are more aggressive than
females (like in many mammalian species), and certainly women have caring,
child-rearing instincts.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I don't know what are instincts, what is culture and what are just stereotypes
of either. However that may be, my opinion as a male is that I should not be
kept in a zoo because someone thinks I have a natural inclination for killing
and raping others. My personal experience tells me that it would be completely
bonkers to think that women aren't just as sharp and focused as men on
average.

~~~
JanezStupar
Sharpness and Focus != Ambition

Ambition is drive one feels to achieve - that IMHO is very different between
genders (on average offcourse).

------
smutticus
I'm an American who has lived in Holland for 8 years so maybe I can offer some
perspective.

1) The NL and the USA are different places with many many differences. As I
often find myself telling my American friends "Stop comparing apples and
oranges". Or the Dutch version "Stop comparing apples and pears".

2) There is less incentive in NL to work and it's easier to work part-time. I
moved here partly because I wanted to take it easy after working my ass off in
the USA. I now work part-time and love it. I know if I go back to the USA that
would be really difficult.

3) The economic situation here is much easier than the USA. It's simply not as
cutthroat and the government takes care of poor who need help. Whether that
rubs you the wrong way ideologically is beside the point. It's easier to be
poor here and not end up dead.

4) Dutch people definitely get depressed. That bit of the article is complete
nonsense and I don't where that idea comes from. There are serious problems
with depression in this country that show in suicide rates and alcohol abuse
rates. Where are her numbers for this assertion?

------
Samuel_Michon
From the article:

 _"less than 10 percent of women [in the Netherlands] are employed full-
time."_

According to the Dutch governmental institution CBS (Statistics Netherlands),
59.7% of all Dutch women work. There are 8.4 million women in the Netherlands.
5 million of those are of working age. 967,000 women work full-time. If you
only count women of working age, 20% of those work full-time. But even if you
were to include infants, students and pensioners in the total, the percentage
of women working full-time would be 12% -- higher than the "less than 10%"
stated in the article.

This is data that I found in 10 minutes, using CBS StatLine. It worries me
that the author got such basic data wrong, data that is readily available. It
makes me distrust the rest of the presented information as well.

<http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/dome/?LA=EN>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics_Netherlands>

~~~
sjs
I don't think hard numbers were the focus of this post, and 10% vs 12% doesn't
really change her point as far as I can see.

edit: Even 20% doesn't change her point or personal experiences.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Including people who can't work is... suggestive.

~~~
yummyfajitas
While "labor force participation less youth less elderly" us a more useful
number for this purpose, it's also usually a number that's hard to dig up.

I find laziness a very plausible explanation for going with the less useful
numbers.

------
sethg
I think this is just one example of the difference between European and
American feminism.

Feminist movements in the USA, the country where “all men are created equal”,
have been most successful where they fought for _formal equality between men
and women_ —antidiscrimination laws, getting more women into traditionally
male professions, punishing sexual harrassment, and so forth.

In Europe, which has a much stronger culture of trade unionism, feminism has
been more focused on _advancing the interests of women as a class_ (in the
same way that a railroad workers’ union would advance the interest of railroad
workers as a class). So Europe leads the US in access to abortion, subsidized
child care, quotas for women on political-party lists, and so forth.

I’m not sure which of these approaches is _better_ but they do lead to
different outcomes.

------
danieldk
To someone living in the Netherlands, feminism seems to be turned on its head
here. After much pressure to increase participation, lots of women simply
argue for their right to raise kids. So, they usually prefer working part-time
and using other time as 'social time'.

Now, if only us men demanded the same ;).

~~~
marquis
Thanks for your reasonable comments on the topic. As a hard-working, caring
female I was offended by the tone of this article. By the first paragraph she
was making assumptions and generalisations, and I couldn't take the rest of
the article seriously with her attempt to make the statistics fit. I'm
familiar with Dutch culture fairly well and it has many complex reasons for
it's social structures that I don't think should be glibly lacerated to fit a
concept. I've always found the Netherlands a highly liberal, equal and
exciting country to work in, whether you want to push yourself over long hours
or go home at 5pm on the dot.

------
jacquesm
Being Dutch I think I'm qualified to at least observe that plenty of men here
too do not have full time jobs and love it. In fact, a fairly common situation
is for _both_ partners to work, but not full time.

~~~
c4urself
I think that's a truer balance; not women doing exactly what men do (work 40
hours a week) but men working less and watching the kids one day a week, and
women also working. (In Holland, 'papadag' is an understanding, that is, a day
that fathers stay at home and watch the kids)

~~~
roel_v
On a tangential note, I hate that word and will go out of my way to mock
people who actually use it in a feeble attempt to curb its spread, even if I
like the concept and will be doing it myself come June. To me it sounds like
'hey look at me, here I am one day a week looking after my kids, screw the 6
other days, I've done my share!'. I mean we don't call the day that the mother
stays at home 'mommyday' either, because that would be ridiculous - every day
is 'mommyday'.

Not to rag on you, just bitching a bit ;)

~~~
yummyfajitas
Just guessing here, but I suspect you don't call the other day "mommyday" for
the same reason you don't call regular days
"daddyworkinghardtosupportthefamilyday". The normal state of affairs doesn't
need a special term.

------
fakelvis
The problem I have with this article is that it is written in such an all-
encompassing manner, using statistics that do not lend themselves directly to
the conclusions presented (for example see jeroen's comment/thread [1]).

Freely admitting that I surround myself with ambitious, passionate people, if
I look purely at personal anecdotes, almost every female I know in this
country would be horrified to be characterised like this. "Lackadaisical
approach to their careers"? Coffee at 2p.m.? Snubbing advancement?

There are one or two good comments on this at Yglesias / Think Progress:
[http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/dutch-women-and-
pa...](http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/dutch-women-and-part-time-
work/)

Now… if only I could persuade my girlfriend to stay in bed after 5:30 or come
home before 20:00.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1929618>

------
scotth
I just felt a little jealous. They have the kind of freedom I would someday
like to have. Maybe Dutch men should be fighting to work less.

~~~
lionhearted
> I just felt a little jealous. They have the kind of freedom I would someday
> like to have. Maybe Dutch men should be fighting to work less.

I wouldn't be too jealous. There's some fantastically amazing things about
Dutch society, but it has its share of problems... a huge rift opened in Dutch
culture after WWII, for a few reasons. The country was largely savaged by the
Nazis, but also a sizable minority of Dutch people collaborated with the
Nazis. It shook the country pretty hard - to this day, "collaborator" has
massively insulting connotations in Dutch. The kind of thing you might get
into a fistfight over.

I don't know the earlier history so well, but it seems like since WWII, Dutch
culture has become more clique-oriented, where you have your close friends
from a very young age, but casual acquaintances keep each other at arms length
much moreso, and it's a bit less trusting of a society than others.

I think it's better when you get out of the big cities, though, semi-rural
areas of the Netherlands are beautiful and the people seem a lot friendlier
and happier.

I don't know, maybe one of the Dutch residents can add on or correct me, but
the social relationships in the Netherlands seemed strained. From my limited
study of the history, this definitely wasn't the case from between the Dutch
Golden Age until WWII. It seems like a lot of Dutch social institutions are
built around the fact that neighborly associations and quickly-built friendly
acquaintanceships don't really happen as much in the Netherlands. I love the
country, but it's not somewhere I'd want to live, especially as an outsider.

Anyway, this is second hand, I only spent a few months there over the course
of my life. It's based on what I've heard from local people and a couple
expats who moved there, one who loves the country but points these things out.
Maybe someone Dutch could weigh in and say whether this is on the mark or the
off the mark... it seems like a lot of the social institutions and customs
evolved to compensate for some problems that were never fully rooted out after
the war and decolonialization.

~~~
rjprins
Dutch guy here..

I don't want to speculate as to why, but generally I agree that social
relationships are strained. I live in Delft where there is a substantial body
of foreign students and phds and I love their social openness.

Dutch people tend to settle in small, rigid cliques. It's hard for anyone to
mingle and make new friends. When you're having a beer with some people and
one person announces he/she is leaving for a party don't expect to be invited
to come along.

It may be a result of the 'Pillarisation' which is officially a thing of the
past.(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillarisation>)

~~~
hackerblues
To be fair, a foreign student who is trying to rebuild a social group from
scratch has more incentive to be be socially outgoing.

------
jeroen
Is "less than 10 percent of women here are employed full-time" really that
interesting?

My sister works 32 hours a week, yet earns more than her husband. Sure,
technically she doesn't work full-time, but I see no classical gender wars
scenario here.

My wife recently stopped working. I love my work, she started to resent hers
and would rather spend her time on other things. I earn enough for both of us
and with her now doing more of the housekeeping I have more free time as well.
We're both happier this way, so where's the problem?

~~~
btmorex
Well, one problem is: "In 2000, a law was passed mandating that women have the
right to cut back hours at their jobs without repercussions from employers."

If the article's correct, that seems like it discriminates against men. If
cutting back working hours is an important right, then why can't men do the
same without repercussions?

~~~
route66
Maybe a misunderstanding, but the law in question (WAA) does not mention male
or female employees but deals only with the right of changing th eweekly work
hours for everyone. It is probably exercised most often after child birth,
other than that, I would think that "women have the right" is wrong as a
statement.

------
RyanMcGreal
Single page:

<http://www.slate.com/id/2274736/pagenum/all/>

------
afshin
Financial independence is the _only_ independence in a patriarchal society.
Dutch society is pretty liberal, so it may be the case that financial
dependence on men does not impinge upon the sense of freedom and well-being
for Dutch women. I wonder if the same would hold true in a more conservative
country like the US.

------
Female
Apparently I'm Dutch! I only work 10 hours a week. And it's really awesome.

My mother is really annoyed that she helped pay for my Ivy education, and is
bugging for me to get a full time job. She jokes that I got my "Mrs." But
other than that I love it.

------
cageface
I've been in Berlin for the last month and people in general here seem also to
be less career-focused than Americans. People live well here but I sometimes
miss the charge you sometimes feel in the air in the U.S. and even more in
Asia.

------
fauigerzigerk
I wonder about the different character of fulltime versus part time jobs. In
most countries I know, part time equals boring. Maybe that's a little
different in the Netherlands but I doubt that it's massively different,
otherwise Dutch boardrooms would be full of part time executives.

Since I firmly believe that women are just as eager and capable of taking on
intellectual challenges as men are, I do indeed regard it as a problem if so
many women do not make full use of their potential. Of course, that doesn't
mean working more than 12 hours a day under extremely high pressure is the
only or even the best way to use that potential.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Most jobs in the Netherlands can be done part-time. Yes, executive-level jobs
are usually an exception, but you can be e.g. a part-time computer programmer
without major issues.

That said, full-times do earn more money and promotions.

------
cafard
I'd be interested to know what the economic effect of divorce is in the
Netherlands. The 1970s and after may have left a lot of American women
thinking that they had to look out for themselves.

------
dan00
You never should have the right to feel right if you aren't getting ahead! ;)

Strange, society tells us the way to go to feel right, but if we follow,
nothing feels right.

------
cracki
"full-time" means spending your whole day earning money, just so you have no
strength left to enjoy the "rest" of your day.

i find that crazy too.

------
vegasbrianc
That is also why the taxes are 52%. They have to nail everyone else who does
work full time and earns a decent wage.

~~~
roadnottaken
FYI: Here's a comparison of tax rates/brackets from around the world:

<http://www.worldwide-tax.com/>

The Netherlands' are high, but not higher than other northern-European
countries.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Sorry to nitpick, but The Netherlands isn't situated in Northern Europe. It's
in Western Europe. Also, 'The Netherlands' is singular, not plural.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Europe>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Netherlands>

~~~
jdminhbg
Double-nitpick:

"The Netherlands' are high" does not suggest that "The Netherlands" is plural;
only that its taxes are.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I'm aware, thank you. 'Roadnottaken' changed his/her post after I commented. I
understand that makes it look like I was referring to the phrase "The
Netherlands' are high".

