Research conducted by Leiden University shows that when parents adjust their working hours, other parents often follow suit. Understanding how other families balance work and care can help new parents divide tasks more equally after the birth of a child.
A recent policy blunder by the new Dutch cabinet has sparked widespread concern. It appears that plans to cut certain benefits will negatively affect pregnant women and new parents. For some families, taking maternity and parental leave will cost them more which has led to significant public unrest. Experts warn that the plans could further widen the gender gap. If taking leave becomes more expensive, fewer partners will choose to do so. This risks reinforcing traditional roles in which women care for the children, while men go out to work. In response to the criticism, two of the three coalition parties, D66 and CDA, now wish to withdraw the plans. If these cuts are cancelled, the projected savings of 50 to 100 million euros will have to be found elsewhere.
Can helping parents cost less?
This policy blunder has revealed just how expensive leave arrangements are. The same also applies to other proposals to help new parents, such as free childcare facilities. The Emancipation monitor (in Dutch) published by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) shows that caring for young children is still mainly carried out by women, though most parents would like to have a more equal division of work and care tasks.
'Women, in particular, are negatively affected after having children.'
If tasks were divided more equally, women could work more hours. Not only is there a clear need for this in today's tight labour market, it would also help reduce the so-called child penalty - the drop in parents' income once they start a family. Women, in particular, are negatively affected at this stage in their lives because they work fewer hours than fathers in order to care for their children. After childbirth, women work an average of 31 hours fewer per month, compared with 10 hours fewer for men - a decrease of 22 percent and 6 percent respectively.
So, how do you ensure that fathers take on more care tasks at home and work less? Economists at Leiden University propose a surprisingly simple and inexpensive way to achieve this. 'When parents with young children adjust their working hours, we see that other parents often follow their example', researcher Max van Lent says. 'But then they need to be aware of how other people organise things.'
Leading by example
Imagine a situation where most father don't work full-time, but four days a week. The possibility that other fathers can also work one day less is then on the table. 'By showing how many hours other young parents work, you can encourage certain behaviour and ultimately a fairer division of work and care tasks,' adds Jordy Meekes, who conducted the study together with Van Lent.
'How colleagues combine work and family has an impact on how many hours other parents work.'
The researchers started from a simple idea: people often compare themselves to those around them. Van Lent: 'We therefore expected that the environment of young parents might influence the choices they make.' What did they discover? Colleagues play the biggest role. How they combine work and family life affects how many hours other parents work. The influence of neighbours and family members is much smaller.
Tackling the child penalty
There are several reasons for the fact that colleagues play such a big role. 'At work, the social norms about how many hours you should work are probably stronger than elsewhere,' says Meekes. Colleagues also show the effect of certain choices for your career. Van Lent explains: 'When colleagues who are parents start working more or fewer hours, you can see what that means in terms of their career - for example, chances of promotion or being assigned interesting projects.'
If the government and employers make certain choices related to working hours, caregiving, and parental leave more visible, it can help other parents think differently about their own decisions. So, this is a relatively low-cost way to promote a more equal division of work and care.
There is, however, one important point to note: the work environment has a greater effect on women than on men. When colleagues work 10 hours more or less each month, mothers adjust their own working hours by an average of 1.5 hours while fathers only adjust their hours by around half an hour. 'The number of men working part-time has increased in recent years, but more progress can still be achieved among fathers,' says Meekes. The economists say that this is exactly where the biggest opportunity lies to reduce the child penalty of women. Van Lent: 'But this will only work if, when fathers start working fewer hours, mothers actually start to work more hours.' 'From a broader economic perspective, that's also desirable,' Meekes adds. 'In a tight labour market, everyone's needed.'
