ABSTRACT
Part-time employment has been significantly increasing in theNetherlands for the past three decades and become one of the mostextended patterns of work. Female part-time employment rate in theNetherlands is higher than in other OECD countries. In thiscountry, three in four working women work part-time. The part-timeemployment rate for women 75,8% is three times higher the parttime employment rate for men 24,9% in 2009. In the Netherlands,while women’s part-time employment rate has continued to rise, thestructure of the households is changing from a single earner couplesto one-and-a-half earner couples. Wage moderation and job sharing have been at the heart of theNetherlands’ model since the 1980s. Part-time work is usually notregarded as precarious work, since part-time work is as permanentand secure as full-time work in the Netherlands. But very atypical andvery short part-time jobs that women mostly work are insecure, lowpaid, casual and precarious. While the rate of involuntary part-time employment is low, not alllonger-term adverse impacts have been overcome. Also genderinequality in employment transitions is evident and women earnconsiderably less than men. There are negative impacts of part-timework on economic independence of women, poverty risk, careerprogression and retirement income
Keywords : The Netherlands, part-time employment, women, economic and social effects
