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I believe the Netherlands stipulates the requirement to offer every job as either part or full time, and a substantial number of job applicants go for the part

I believe the Netherlands stipulates the requirement to offer every job as either part or full time, and a substantial number of job applicants go for the part time option, especially women. Interestingly, there have been some unintended downstream impact of this progressive law, such as lower women participation in senior level roles.

Okkef 3y ago
It is simply not true that all jobs are offered at parttime. There is some amount of part-time time available after getting kids, but it's not a general requirement for all jobs.
corethree 3y ago
>Interestingly, there have been some unintended downstream impact of this progressive law, such as lower women participation in senior level roles This isn't downstream impact. It's more of a choice. The women choose not to strive for senior level roles. They express this choice by choosing the 4 day work week. We shouldn't call it an unintended downstream impact because it's not something that should be corrected. If women choose not to work as hard as men, then we shouldn't try to equalize their participation in senior roles.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Interesting to see someone on HN of all places equate longer hours with "working harder" or being more qualified for senior roles. Speaking from personal experience with a cohort of Millenial dads: a lot of "women working less to prioritize family" comes down to women being expected to be caregivers and men typically not having experienced the same socialization from a young age and feeling overwhelmed, thus retreating into work to both avoid care work and be able to justify it by being "the provider". It's pretty telling when we chastise women for "not pulling their weight" at work when they're also typically expected to do most of the household chores, social labor (e.g. keeping track of birthdays, relationships and preferences throughout the family's social circles) and caregiving but don't call out deadbeat dads like Elon Musk who sire new children left and right while being completely incapable of maintaining a relationship with any of the mothers and abandoning any child that calls him out for his bullshit once they get old enough to form an opinion. And as a reminder: Musk holds several official positions including multiple C-tier ones and still spends an ungodly amount of time shitposting on Twitter. If you think that the time he spends on any one of his jobs on average accounts for more than the equivalent of a 4 day work week while also being this heavily distracted and spread thin, you're being ridiculous.
  - corethree 3y ago
    >Speaking from personal experience with a cohort of Millenial dads: a lot of "women working less to prioritize family" comes down to women being expected to be caregivers and men typically not having experienced the same socialization from a young age and feeling overwhelmed, thus retreating into work to both avoid care work and be able to justify it by being "the provider". It is not an expectation. It's been part of human behavior across all cultures since history. Men are the workers and women are the care givers and home makers. The behavior is seen so consistently across cultures that it's safe to say it's more then social conditioning. It's biological. Humans are flexible enough to behave outside of biological parameters but you are in utter denial if you deny the evidence that spans across ancient history and all cultures across the world. But this is besides the point. The point is if I run a business, my objective is to succeed. My objective is not to hire some women who wants to do a 4 day work week to support a child. It may be beneficial to the mother to give her advantages but it is not beneficial to me as the person who spent my hard earned cash paying her. >It's pretty telling when we chastise women for "not pulling their weight" at work when they're also typically expected to do most of the household chores, social labor (e.g. keeping track of birthdays, relationships and preferences throughout the family's social circles) and caregiving but don't call out deadbeat dads like Elon Musk who sire new children left and right while being completely incapable of maintaining a relationship with any of the mothers and abandoning any child that calls him out for his bullshit once they get old enough to form an opinion. As a person who risked all my resources on a business how the hell does house hold chores apply to me? If the woman demands to have the same pay and rank as the hard working guy who works 5 days a week because she spent a lot of time caring for some kid that has nothing to do with my business, how is that fair to me? It's asking for a handout. And sure if the government wants to force me to give a hand out to make society a better place than great. I support this. What I don't support is this lie that what was given out is anything but a hand out. It is extra help and it is not something that was earned with fair trade. The person who devotes the most effort and has the best results deserves the most reward. >If you think that the time he spends on any one of his jobs on average accounts for more than the equivalent of a 4 day work week while also being this heavily distracted and spread thin, you're being ridiculous. If you're asking me what I think is ridiculous I would say your response to me is ridiculous. Not being snarky here, your hypothetical implies ridiculousness and I respond with another hypothetical about your statement. What does Elon have to do with anything? If Elon sired 50 children and abandoned them, that's evil and wrong, but that's completely orthogonal to my business. I pay someone for results and Elon delivers. What he does outside of that is a completely different thing. In general Men spend more time and more effort at work so they tend to deliver better results and thus they get more senior positions. It's obvious if women choose a 4 day work week they're just not as into it as men and thus they get paid less and get less senior positions. Not all women make the choice to take care of children. A good number of women choose to do what the men do and when you control for that the data shows that the gender pay gap largely disappears. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gende... I support equal pay and standards for the women who deliver equal results as men. Are you saying you don't support this? You support unequal standards? You support handouts for women when they raise kids? It's a valid thing to support. But don't call it what it isn't. It is a gift and not something women are entitled to.
- isoprophlex 3y ago
  > If women choose not to work as hard as men, then we shouldn't try to equalize their participation in senior roles This is a myopic, reductionist take. You're missing the forest for the trees. It is not a matter of women choosing not to work as hard as men, it is a matter of society being structured in such a way that men are disproportionately not involved in raising a family, and women being delegated to the task of caregiver even though they themselves would like more equality. Economically, women are pressured to stay out of the workplace for 6+ months, whereas men get a couple of days-weeks to stay at home.
  - corethree 3y ago
    Your the frog living in the well. Think bigger. For eons and millennia society has been structured this way since forever. It's only in the recent three or four decades has there been a cultural shift. Men have been taking home the income since they were hunting, farming and now programming. Women taking home the money is a new thing. That only happened in the last 50 or so years. And the social pressures aren't even forcing them to take home the money. To women, it's just an option. For men the pressure is worse. For men it's a social requirement... the survival of the family unit still rests entirely on their shoulders. But again this is besides the point. The main question here is, how does this new opportunity for women to make money suddenly make women deserve a hand out when they choose divide the time devoted to these new opportunities with care giving? You do less work and as a business owner I have to give you the same pay because you're entitled to it? How does that logic work out? It doesn't. If an employee works 4 days a week and obviously has his/her attention divided to other endeavors how does he/she deserve a promotion? Are you kidding? Maybe in her eyes she deserves a promotion, but as a business owner I'd rather promote the single guy who is 100% dedicated because he's the one that actually deserves it. That being said if society wants to make themselves better and give hand outs to women for caregiving... I'm all for it. But don't twist it any other way. What's going on here is a charity. A kind gift to caregivers who are not entitled to said gift in any way. Don't come to me as if women deserve promotions because they have kids to take care of or social pressures to deal with. That's just garbage. Also don't get me started on the pressures on men, it's magnitudes larger than it is for women, magnitudes and we don't go around screaming for a handout.
- HelloNurse 3y ago
  It can be considered an imperfect intermediate step towards gender equality: women that are more or less voluntarily burdened with child care are very likely to work part time, instead of quitting completely because part time is out of the question (which is a far worse discrimination than a "glass ceiling" with respect to high level promotions).
  - corethree 3y ago
    Yeah this is fair. It makes sense. Equality is about equal pay for equal results. Not handouts. People forget that although the handout might be good for society overall it is unfair to the person giving out the handout. I don't think this step is intermediate. It is the most fair step possible.
    - HelloNurse 3y ago
      Further improvement would involve a more balanced workplace culture than promoting only "dedicated" workaholics (and expecting those workaholics to be men).
      - corethree 3y ago
        No it makes sense to promote dedicated workaholics to the highest echelons. They have maximal impact to business. If those workaholics are women then those women very much need to be promoted as well. The data actually shows this is already happening. It shows that when you control for the choices women make about child care... the gender pay gap is largely negligible. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gende... This is an interesting podcast about the topic if you haven't hear of this concept already. They interview a female statistical professor from Harvard about it.
        kuchenbecker 3y ago
        > Female Statistics Professor Claudia Goldin, the economic "Nobel" Laurette this year. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Goldin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Goldin
isoprophlex 3y ago
I'm dutch and this is definitely not some stipulated requirement. Mandatory 40 hr jobs do exist. (Edit! A commenter above me shows that apparently it's difficult for employers to disallow requests for shorter workweeks, so take what i say with a grain of salt. All i know is that i often come across job openings for 40hr/wk contracts only) That said, taxation and society as a whole is structured such that it doesn't always make sense to work 5 days. Like the author mentions, in a certain tax bracket you effectively lose 10% of your income to go from a 5 day to a 4 day work week. Then, if you have kids, getting daycare reduces the benefits of working full time even further. To wit: I spend ~€1250/month after tax cuts on putting two kids into daycare, for 2 days. That exceeds my mortgage. Earn more? Less tax cuts. Work longer hours? Be prepared to fork over even more money.
WJW 3y ago
Explanatory page at https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/vraag-en-antwoord/wanneer-mag-ik-meer-of-minder-uren-werken https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/arbeidsovereenkomst... (Dutch only AFAICT, sorry) Employers are almost required to approve a request to work less hours than full time. The reasons why it would not be allowed are fairly minimal. The only reasons allowed are: - Nobody else can take over the work (ie very specialized knowledge) - Insurmountable problems with work shift planning (simply having to hire another person is not considered insurmountable) - Not enough money or work (rare, would primarily occur for people wanting to work more instead of less) - No space in the personnel formation (would presumably also mostly apply for people wanting to work more rather than less) In addition this law only applies to companies with more than 10 employees, the employee requesting part time has to work there for at least 26 weeks and they need to file the request at least 8 weeks in advance (to give the employer time to hire additional people) That said, yes it is great and I agree completely with TFA. I fully believe that having 5 employees at 32 hours/week is better for a company than 4 employees at 40 hours/week, for the reasons stated in the article. It is better for employees too, because an extra day a week to do errands (while the kids are at school!) brings some much needed extra time in a household where both partners are working. Even if you are not married having more time for yourself can be a great choice if you already have enough income.
- bux93 3y ago
  It's a stipulated requirement in most cases but enforcement of rules for employers is massively underfunded, so companies that don't have to deal with a union aren't bothered that much by regulations. Government workers are well organized and don't notice that the rules they thought up (and are responsible for having enforced) actually are ignored by most non-government employers. In fact, government is usually calling for a more flexible labor market, even though the Dutch labor market is among the most flexible in the EU (if not the most flexible as, again, any costs to getting rid of employees in an illegal fashion are neglible in the first place. They are also not enforced at all unless the illegally fired employee has the wherewithal to sue. Which is not trivial for lower paid people as access to subsidized legal help has been slashed. And even if you have a fixed term/hour contract, no country has as many temps and contractors which can be shown the door by the people paying their fees, which leads to unhealthy power dynamics with their immediate employer as well.) So yes, in theory (and for government workers in practice) it's all nice.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> Interestingly, there have been some unintended downstream impact of this progressive law, such as lower women participation in senior level roles. The word “unintended,” while probably accurate, is bothersome. The intention should be to maximize individual choice. Are we supposed to force women into senior positions to please our sensibilities?
- hunglee2 3y ago
  I hear you, and you make a good point. However, I think the term 'unintended' is both accurate and non-bothersome in this case, as I am confident that when the law was designed, it did not factor in this downstream impact.

Okkef 3y ago

It is simply not true that all jobs are offered at parttime. There is some amount of part-time time available after getting kids, but it's not a general requirement for all jobs.

corethree 3y ago

>Interestingly, there have been some unintended downstream impact of this progressive law, such as lower women participation in senior level roles This isn't downstream impact. It's more of a choice. The women choose not to strive for senior level roles. They express this choice by choosing the 4 day work week. We shouldn't call it an unintended downstream impact because it's not something that should be corrected. If women choose not to work as hard as men, then we shouldn't try to equalize their participation in senior roles.

hnbad 3y ago
Interesting to see someone on HN of all places equate longer hours with "working harder" or being more qualified for senior roles. Speaking from personal experience with a cohort of Millenial dads: a lot of "women working less to prioritize family" comes down to women being expected to be caregivers and men typically not having experienced the same socialization from a young age and feeling overwhelmed, thus retreating into work to both avoid care work and be able to justify it by being "the provider". It's pretty telling when we chastise women for "not pulling their weight" at work when they're also typically expected to do most of the household chores, social labor (e.g. keeping track of birthdays, relationships and preferences throughout the family's social circles) and caregiving but don't call out deadbeat dads like Elon Musk who sire new children left and right while being completely incapable of maintaining a relationship with any of the mothers and abandoning any child that calls him out for his bullshit once they get old enough to form an opinion. And as a reminder: Musk holds several official positions including multiple C-tier ones and still spends an ungodly amount of time shitposting on Twitter. If you think that the time he spends on any one of his jobs on average accounts for more than the equivalent of a 4 day work week while also being this heavily distracted and spread thin, you're being ridiculous.
- corethree 3y ago
  >Speaking from personal experience with a cohort of Millenial dads: a lot of "women working less to prioritize family" comes down to women being expected to be caregivers and men typically not having experienced the same socialization from a young age and feeling overwhelmed, thus retreating into work to both avoid care work and be able to justify it by being "the provider". It is not an expectation. It's been part of human behavior across all cultures since history. Men are the workers and women are the care givers and home makers. The behavior is seen so consistently across cultures that it's safe to say it's more then social conditioning. It's biological. Humans are flexible enough to behave outside of biological parameters but you are in utter denial if you deny the evidence that spans across ancient history and all cultures across the world. But this is besides the point. The point is if I run a business, my objective is to succeed. My objective is not to hire some women who wants to do a 4 day work week to support a child. It may be beneficial to the mother to give her advantages but it is not beneficial to me as the person who spent my hard earned cash paying her. >It's pretty telling when we chastise women for "not pulling their weight" at work when they're also typically expected to do most of the household chores, social labor (e.g. keeping track of birthdays, relationships and preferences throughout the family's social circles) and caregiving but don't call out deadbeat dads like Elon Musk who sire new children left and right while being completely incapable of maintaining a relationship with any of the mothers and abandoning any child that calls him out for his bullshit once they get old enough to form an opinion. As a person who risked all my resources on a business how the hell does house hold chores apply to me? If the woman demands to have the same pay and rank as the hard working guy who works 5 days a week because she spent a lot of time caring for some kid that has nothing to do with my business, how is that fair to me? It's asking for a handout. And sure if the government wants to force me to give a hand out to make society a better place than great. I support this. What I don't support is this lie that what was given out is anything but a hand out. It is extra help and it is not something that was earned with fair trade. The person who devotes the most effort and has the best results deserves the most reward. >If you think that the time he spends on any one of his jobs on average accounts for more than the equivalent of a 4 day work week while also being this heavily distracted and spread thin, you're being ridiculous. If you're asking me what I think is ridiculous I would say your response to me is ridiculous. Not being snarky here, your hypothetical implies ridiculousness and I respond with another hypothetical about your statement. What does Elon have to do with anything? If Elon sired 50 children and abandoned them, that's evil and wrong, but that's completely orthogonal to my business. I pay someone for results and Elon delivers. What he does outside of that is a completely different thing. In general Men spend more time and more effort at work so they tend to deliver better results and thus they get more senior positions. It's obvious if women choose a 4 day work week they're just not as into it as men and thus they get paid less and get less senior positions. Not all women make the choice to take care of children. A good number of women choose to do what the men do and when you control for that the data shows that the gender pay gap largely disappears. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gende... I support equal pay and standards for the women who deliver equal results as men. Are you saying you don't support this? You support unequal standards? You support handouts for women when they raise kids? It's a valid thing to support. But don't call it what it isn't. It is a gift and not something women are entitled to.
isoprophlex 3y ago
> If women choose not to work as hard as men, then we shouldn't try to equalize their participation in senior roles This is a myopic, reductionist take. You're missing the forest for the trees. It is not a matter of women choosing not to work as hard as men, it is a matter of society being structured in such a way that men are disproportionately not involved in raising a family, and women being delegated to the task of caregiver even though they themselves would like more equality. Economically, women are pressured to stay out of the workplace for 6+ months, whereas men get a couple of days-weeks to stay at home.
- corethree 3y ago
  Your the frog living in the well. Think bigger. For eons and millennia society has been structured this way since forever. It's only in the recent three or four decades has there been a cultural shift. Men have been taking home the income since they were hunting, farming and now programming. Women taking home the money is a new thing. That only happened in the last 50 or so years. And the social pressures aren't even forcing them to take home the money. To women, it's just an option. For men the pressure is worse. For men it's a social requirement... the survival of the family unit still rests entirely on their shoulders. But again this is besides the point. The main question here is, how does this new opportunity for women to make money suddenly make women deserve a hand out when they choose divide the time devoted to these new opportunities with care giving? You do less work and as a business owner I have to give you the same pay because you're entitled to it? How does that logic work out? It doesn't. If an employee works 4 days a week and obviously has his/her attention divided to other endeavors how does he/she deserve a promotion? Are you kidding? Maybe in her eyes she deserves a promotion, but as a business owner I'd rather promote the single guy who is 100% dedicated because he's the one that actually deserves it. That being said if society wants to make themselves better and give hand outs to women for caregiving... I'm all for it. But don't twist it any other way. What's going on here is a charity. A kind gift to caregivers who are not entitled to said gift in any way. Don't come to me as if women deserve promotions because they have kids to take care of or social pressures to deal with. That's just garbage. Also don't get me started on the pressures on men, it's magnitudes larger than it is for women, magnitudes and we don't go around screaming for a handout.
HelloNurse 3y ago
It can be considered an imperfect intermediate step towards gender equality: women that are more or less voluntarily burdened with child care are very likely to work part time, instead of quitting completely because part time is out of the question (which is a far worse discrimination than a "glass ceiling" with respect to high level promotions).
- corethree 3y ago
  Yeah this is fair. It makes sense. Equality is about equal pay for equal results. Not handouts. People forget that although the handout might be good for society overall it is unfair to the person giving out the handout. I don't think this step is intermediate. It is the most fair step possible.
  - HelloNurse 3y ago
    Further improvement would involve a more balanced workplace culture than promoting only "dedicated" workaholics (and expecting those workaholics to be men).
    - corethree 3y ago
      No it makes sense to promote dedicated workaholics to the highest echelons. They have maximal impact to business. If those workaholics are women then those women very much need to be promoted as well. The data actually shows this is already happening. It shows that when you control for the choices women make about child care... the gender pay gap is largely negligible. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gende... This is an interesting podcast about the topic if you haven't hear of this concept already. They interview a female statistical professor from Harvard about it.
      - kuchenbecker 3y ago
        > Female Statistics Professor Claudia Goldin, the economic "Nobel" Laurette this year. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Goldin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Goldin

isoprophlex 3y ago

I'm dutch and this is definitely not some stipulated requirement. Mandatory 40 hr jobs do exist. (Edit! A commenter above me shows that apparently it's difficult for employers to disallow requests for shorter workweeks, so take what i say with a grain of salt. All i know is that i often come across job openings for 40hr/wk contracts only) That said, taxation and society as a whole is structured such that it doesn't always make sense to work 5 days. Like the author mentions, in a certain tax bracket you effectively lose 10% of your income to go from a 5 day to a 4 day work week. Then, if you have kids, getting daycare reduces the benefits of working full time even further. To wit: I spend ~€1250/month after tax cuts on putting two kids into daycare, for 2 days. That exceeds my mortgage. Earn more? Less tax cuts. Work longer hours? Be prepared to fork over even more money.

WJW 3y ago

Explanatory page at https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/arbeidsovereenkomst-en-cao/vraag-en-antwoord/wanneer-mag-ik-meer-of-minder-uren-werken https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/arbeidsovereenkomst... (Dutch only AFAICT, sorry) Employers are almost required to approve a request to work less hours than full time. The reasons why it would not be allowed are fairly minimal. The only reasons allowed are: - Nobody else can take over the work (ie very specialized knowledge) - Insurmountable problems with work shift planning (simply having to hire another person is not considered insurmountable) - Not enough money or work (rare, would primarily occur for people wanting to work more instead of less) - No space in the personnel formation (would presumably also mostly apply for people wanting to work more rather than less) In addition this law only applies to companies with more than 10 employees, the employee requesting part time has to work there for at least 26 weeks and they need to file the request at least 8 weeks in advance (to give the employer time to hire additional people) That said, yes it is great and I agree completely with TFA. I fully believe that having 5 employees at 32 hours/week is better for a company than 4 employees at 40 hours/week, for the reasons stated in the article. It is better for employees too, because an extra day a week to do errands (while the kids are at school!) brings some much needed extra time in a household where both partners are working. Even if you are not married having more time for yourself can be a great choice if you already have enough income.

bux93 3y ago
It's a stipulated requirement in most cases but enforcement of rules for employers is massively underfunded, so companies that don't have to deal with a union aren't bothered that much by regulations. Government workers are well organized and don't notice that the rules they thought up (and are responsible for having enforced) actually are ignored by most non-government employers. In fact, government is usually calling for a more flexible labor market, even though the Dutch labor market is among the most flexible in the EU (if not the most flexible as, again, any costs to getting rid of employees in an illegal fashion are neglible in the first place. They are also not enforced at all unless the illegally fired employee has the wherewithal to sue. Which is not trivial for lower paid people as access to subsidized legal help has been slashed. And even if you have a fixed term/hour contract, no country has as many temps and contractors which can be shown the door by the people paying their fees, which leads to unhealthy power dynamics with their immediate employer as well.) So yes, in theory (and for government workers in practice) it's all nice.

nonethewiser 3y ago

> Interestingly, there have been some unintended downstream impact of this progressive law, such as lower women participation in senior level roles. The word “unintended,” while probably accurate, is bothersome. The intention should be to maximize individual choice. Are we supposed to force women into senior positions to please our sensibilities?

hunglee2 3y ago
I hear you, and you make a good point. However, I think the term 'unintended' is both accurate and non-bothersome in this case, as I am confident that when the law was designed, it did not factor in this downstream impact.