Holland lagging behind
Yesterday, Harvard professor of economic studies Claudia Goldin was visiting Holland and gave a lecture at the Department of OCW: Education, Culture and Sciences. She’s an expert in the field of economic change due to the entrance of women in the workforce. According to her, Holland is now on the level of Indiana in terms of female participation in the workforce. Yes indeed, Indiana, the rural, conservative state in the Mid-West… Although the number of women that work is on pair with other European countries, the amount of working hours is substantially lower; Dutch and Norwegian women work 1300 hours a year on average, the least of all OESO countries. That comes down to less than 20 hours per week. Goldin argues that this extreme low amount of hours spent working holds the Dutch back from what she calls the ’silent revolution’, the crucial change for women to an equal position in society.
There’s an article on Goldin in a ww.nrcnext.nl/links, but you have to register to read it.
Marianne van Leeuwen on June 19th 2008 in News
crisrocs responded on 20 Jun 2008 at %1:%Jun %p #
lol! I lived in Indiana for a while, when I was an intern at Indiana University. Yes. It’s rural… and you see women at (hard) work every day. Just not as much in offices, so probably nonpaid.
Did they compare total hours women make accross countries, or are those numbers corrected relatively to men? Because I think men work less hours in Holland as well.
When I was in the US, we would be on the job at 8AM and would have dinner together with colleagues and kids, then proceed working and go home at 11pm. And you hear people juggling 3 jobs at the same time, just to make enough money to live. Here, in comparison, we are well taken care of. And we have a choice. I am not sure what to think of those numbers… I’d rather be living here when it comes to that then anywhere else!
I love your blog Marianne!
Christine, from Amsterdam