Being a Dutch man I already work less :).
Ontopic: I find the conclusion strange. 20 years ago a lot of women didn't work. Right now the percentage of working women is quite high. Some people will say it's because of our country getting more US like.
I like my work, but still if I don't have to be there 40+hours a week and make a decent living. You're not going to find me at the office.
> 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.
Being Dutch, I may be too close to see clearly - but I don't really see your "cliques". But yes, we are more business-like with acquaintances than an American would be.
Pre-WW2 Dutch society was divided into a couple of large groups, with Catholics, Protestants, Socialists and Liberals (pretty much "the rest") having their own newspapers, schools, etc. This is much less true nowadays - a lot of integration happened during and shortly after WW2 - but it's still quite noticeable (look at public television or catholic/protestant schools). Were you perhaps thinking of this?
Yes, WW2 is an important part of our history, and the source of pretty much the only national myths we have (which tend to paint the Dutch as brave resistance fighters.) "Nazi" is still the worst insult we have.
Of course, with the rise of Fortuyn, Verdonk and now Wilders, one can doubt whether the appropriate lessons have been learned/retained...
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'm Dutch and have spent all my 34 years here. In the last two years I have found 4 new friends and my last three jobs (8 years in total) have left me with a good friend each.
I'm also an introvert and spend about 80 hours a week behind my laptops.
If you experience the Dutch as clique-oriented, you might be looking in the wrong places. In my experience cities with a university have a more open culture.
I'm not sure what you mean there but WWII was 65 years ago and I've not heard anyone being called a 'collaborator' in the 40 years of my life here. It's just not an issue.
>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 think that's largely true. If we want to meet people we tend to just go to bars and cafes, do sports or go to concerts. We tend to leave our neighbours alone, give them their space. We do practically live on top of each other
so it just seems common sense.
>it's not somewhere I'd want to live, especially as an outsider.
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.
Sorry, but I have to say you are off the mark. I usually find that the Dutch society is generally very open, and nearly any topic is fair game (watch Dutch TV for fun). This goes hand in hand with strong individualism, which means that the Dutch generally do not have tight bonds. To outsiders this may seem cold and maybe snobbish/arrogant.
I second this. As an expat living here for the past 3 years this has been my experience also. The Dutch are open and sociable but creating bonds is where it seems to stop. And this is not just in relation to expats. I've met Dutch people who have moved to Amsterdam/Utrecht from other cities and were basically hanging out with expats. I've actually talked to them about this, and they've expressed the same feelings.
From my observations it's usually that the Dutch have a small group of friends (usually knowing each other since being little or high school) and they don't really feel the need to either make new ones or let anyone else in.
This does come of as being cold though.
"From my observations it's usually that the Dutch have a small group of friends (usually knowing each other since being little or high school) and they don't really feel the need to either make new ones or let anyone else in."
Yeah this is spot on. It makes it hard to make friends even when moving cities. You still hang out with the old crowd even if they're a couple of hours away, because finding a new group is just so hard.
(Belgian migrated to the Netherlands here, who does this himself - it's easier to make local friends in the expat crowd that it is with the locals. Still I associate mostly with my old friend from high school).
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.
clique-oriented, where you have your close friends from a very young age, but casual acquaintances keep each other at arms length much moreso
That's how I feel in Vienna, too, despite making huge efforts to find/make friends (like throwing conferences, hosting UGs, parties, etc). Even my Austrian friends who are from outside the city have the same problems. I've decided to give up.
It seems to be tied to a fear of novelty… people are too comfortable, but they complain about the advantages they have. Everything here is so goshdarn nice and even that it seems like people have lost the ability to "stretch" to deal with something new, different, or unexpected. (And sadly that seems to extend to people.) In fact, even their own emotions seem muted -- rather than excitement, or passion, or even hate, or joy, everything seems to be fairly even. Simple example: it's very rare to find someone laughing in a restaurant or cafe, and if you do, others will stare.
This social posture seems to be a lot more common in Europe than in, say, the US. And more common yet again in the Germanic cultures (incl. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, and most of Scandinavia) than in the Latin cultures.
Who knows if it's echoes from the war or something else.
I had the same reaction. According to the article, Dutch women pity the people (mainly men, it seems) who work the longer hours that enable the (presumably) higher standard of living than a part time work schedule would allow.
Of course, none of this is a problem if everyone is living the way they want to live. Some people are really passionate about work, and you can still have a decent work-family-life balance with a full time job - especially if your income is good and you can support a spouse who provides a lot of domestic support.
But it would be interesting to hear from the other corner of the room some time. The title of this article is "Dutch Women work less, have a big gender pay gap, and they love it". How about the headline "Dutch men work more, have a big gender pay gap, and they <love? hate? feel ambivalence about?> it"
Yeah, me neither. While I can't speak for all Nordic countries, the development in Sweden seems to be the exact OPPOSITE of what's going on in the Netherlands. Sheet, the lefties were even calling for a law requiring employers to provide full-time employment for all part-timers who desired it (a crazy stupid idea lacking any regard for basic economics, but hey...).
