Last Friday, Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) published the Emancipation Memorandum 2022-2025. In it, the government states that it wants to promote gender equality in the labor market by increasing the payment percentage for paid parental leave from 50 percent to 70 percent of the daily wage. The same policy choice could also be read in the coalition agreement, in which the word ‘parental leave’ appears only once.
About the author
Elin Leijten is co-initiator of the Petition 21-eeuwsverlof.nl, entrepreneur and chairman of the Het Buiken Collectief foundation, a national client organization for pregnant women in Dutch maternity care.
21st century leave
We, a group of working parents from various professional groups, believe that it is also the case in the Netherlands time for truly modern leave arrangements and advocate a 21st century leave.
To put Dutch policy in perspective: on August 2, the final implementation date of Directive (EU) 2019/1158, the Netherlands did indeed introduce paid parental leave imposed by Europe. In other words: paid leave for only two months (the European minimum) and against payment of
70 percent of the daily wage, up to the maximum daily wage.
This benefit percentage is a Dutch choice, which, even after an increase to 70 percent of the daily wage, shows little evidence of the desire to actually make this parental leave financially accessible to (non-wealthy) parents.
Money worries
Like de Volkskrant recently published: in this purchasing power crisis, working parents are also increasingly struggling with money worries. Research by the European Commission, among others, dating from before the current historically high inflation, shows that the benefit percentage must be at least 80 percent to make it financially feasible to take parental leave for the partners of mothers/birth parents on a large scale.
It goes without saying that in 2022 a compensation of 80 percent of the income is also insufficient for many to afford parental leave. For many parents in the Netherlands, the recently realized expansion of parental leave is only a pyrrhic victory: parental leave remains an elitist affair in our current system. In her critically acclaimed book Why women earn less economist Sophie van Gool, among others, highlights this problem.
Resign to status quo
More plans to extend Dutch parental leave are not on the political agenda after the recent expansions. Progressive parties also seem to be resigned to the status quo. In fact, in the House of Representatives progressive parties are calling for full-time bonuses.
It seems to be assumed that unpaid work has less value than paid work, while the demographic prospects of the country alone – which are also clearly highlighted in this paper – and including the problematic lack of any debate about this, compel social recognition of the value of unpaid work, such as caring for a family member. Not to mention the task that our depleted living environment gives us to put the phenomenon of care back on a pedestal.
The current political debate about the shortage on the labor market nevertheless focuses on maximizing the number of hours of paid work by the working population, with Dutch women in particular who work part-time still being told that this choice does not contribute enough to the Dutch economy. The fact that no less than one in six Dutch employees suffer from burnout complaints and an entire generation no longer wants to work full-time does not seem to have penetrated the political discourse.
Gender inequality persists
Meanwhile, 462 new babies are born every day in the Netherlands, whose mothers/birth parents still receive longer and better paid leave than their partners. That ‘the personal (is) political’ is also apparent here. Although it is evidently a residue of times gone by, the gender inequality anchored in our leave regulations still stands proudly in the Netherlands – to this day.
The geopolitical turbulence and tight labor market seem to be supplanting any discussion about more modern leave arrangements in the Netherlands. In Finland, however, we see how it can also be done: in addition to defying the threat posed by neighbor Russia and applying for NATO membership, the Finnish cabinet led by Prime Minister Sanna Marin introduced a new parental leave system there last August: completely gender equal parental leave after the birth of a child, amounting to 160 days of paid leave per parent.
Progressive arrangement please
The Petition 21st Century Leave is an appeal to the Dutch government to introduce progressive leave arrangements in the Netherlands as well. A lance is being broken for the introduction of the right to 160 days of paid parental leave after the birth of a child for all parents, gender equal as in Finland, for the extension of the working hours law to grant pregnant women more rights to breaks and a right to leave after miscarriage and stillbirth before 24 weeks gestation. To quote the coalition agreement once again: for ‘a sustainably prosperous country for current and future generations, in which all inhabitants can participate according to their ability’.