Microsoft Word Socialized Choices 31-12 pod docx

Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers 
14 
analyses, I learned a great deal about their respective ways of looking at research 
findings.  
Additionally, my thanks are due to people working at the Inspectorate of 
Social Affairs and Employment in The Hague. First, I would like to thank Henk 
van der Nol, who was my boss five years ago. He immediately and fully approved 
of my careful request to combine my work with a PhD study. Without his consent 
or his positive reaction, I would never have been able to start my research in the 
first place. In the last phase of my research, Nico Babbeko also played a vital 
role. Nico was very supportive and drove me towards completing my thesis - 
thank you! In the background, there has constantly been the encouraging presence 
of Coen van de Louw, my director. Coen was at all times very positive about the 
fact that I was doing a doctorate and he enquired frequently on my progress - I 
appreciated that very much. 
Furthermore, I am truly thankful to Eelco Wierda who always found time, 
even on short notice, to read the initial analyses of my research. Through his 
lengthy work experience he was able to put the research findings in a broader 
societal emancipatory perspective, which was very helpful. I’d also like to thank 
him and my close and wholehearted friend Annet for being my two paranymphs 
today! 
I would like to show my respect to my colleagues Robert Voogt and Cor Deyl 
– the two whiz-kid music-addicts in our section. Robert critically read the first 
drafts of my research plan and later some of the quantitative papers. Cor taught 
me the basics of SPSS and helped me out with constructing the tables of the 
OECD.   
Other important people at work in the initial phase of my study were Roger 
Jolly and Johan Zeilstra, and, at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour 
Studies, Kea Tijdens, Haya Stier and Marianne Grünell. I would like to thank 
them for their comments on early drafts of my work, which enabled me to further 
shape my research. I would also like to thank Hans Koemans who was always 
there to ease my work when I started taking things far too seriously. 
I am especially appreciative to the 39 mothers I interviewed. Their time and 
frank answers to my questions made the study possible. Moreover, the diversity 
of their life stories opened my mind and made me empathetic to all possible work 
decisions of my female counterparts. My gratitude goes further to CentERdata of 
Tilburg University, the Netherlands. They made the research possible while 
appending my questionnaire to the LISS (Longitudinal Internet Studies for the 
Social Sciences) panel survey. 
My dear Irish friend Sheila Waldrons has been valuable to me as well. She 
edited the first drafts of the qualitative chapters. It was very special to work with 
her, since it had been twenty years since we studied and lived together at the 
University of Warwick (UK). For editing the final manuscript, I think Tom 
Williams has done an excellent job. My friend Joannet van der Perk has also done 
great work. She helped me out – when I was in a real time-squeeze – with 
translating the English summary into Dutch. She also aided me in the very last 

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Acknowledgements 
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stage of the research with putting together the conclusions in a few words for the 
back cover. I have valued her contribution hugely. And at the very last moment, 
there was my dear old friend Ilse Wage. We scanned the formatted manuscript 
together - thank you very much! 
Likewise, my gratitude is deep when I think of all my precious friends with 
whom I love spending time and who have been at all times so joyful, interested 
and reassuring about my research.  
Last but not least, I am very grateful and truly happy with Martijn, and our 
much-loved and sweetest children Meike, Bente, Tijn and Kaj. Martijn gave me 
the time to work on my research as much as I needed. He knows how important it 
is to have something in life that you can work on passionately, and how that thing 
can fuel everything else, and I love him for that.  

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Introduction  
 
Women, especially mothers, display diverse working patterns within the Dutch 
labour market. In the year 2010, 32.4 per cent of Dutch mothers
1
 were not in paid 
work or worked less than 12 hours a week, while 42.5 per cent worked between 
12 and 24 hours a week and 13.8 per cent worked 25 to 35 hours a week; only 
11.3 per cent worked 36 hours or more (CBS-Statline, 2011). This study is 
dedicated to the investigation of the origins of Dutch women’s diverse labour 
market behaviour. More precisely, the study is aimed at revealing recognisable 
patterns within Dutch mothers’ diverse labour market behaviour by exploring the 
heterogeneous decision-making and micro-socialization processes underlying 
their current labour market behaviour.  
Theoretically, this study makes use of some essential insights from social 
psychology and micro economical theory, and yet the main research area from 
which explanations of mothers’ diverse labour market behaviour have been 
derived is the micro-interactional level of sociology. The interpretation of social 
life on a micro-interactional level originated from phenomenology and symbolic 
interactionism (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Layder, 1994; Mead, 1934; Wallace 
and Wolf, 2006). Within this school of sociology it is believed that in order to 
understand human activity one must focus on the level of the individual, rather 
than on social systems as a whole, because people make crucial life decisions on 
this level. Nonetheless, this study acknowledges that in order to understand 
everyday experience, we must also trace the external social relations (or the social 
system) that provide the conditions of social interaction (Layder, 1994, p.165). 
Society is not merely constructed of individuals, but rather people’s daily 
encounters are intimately linked to the institutionalised features of social systems. 
The study therefore starts with an analysis of the meaningful worlds of Dutch 
mothers, and the socio-historical and institutional context of the Netherlands. In 
line with Layder (1994), social institutions and social interaction are viewed as 
different aspects or layers of social reality, but these two social layers are 
mutually dependent and deeply implicated in each other.
2
 
Special emphasis is put on how people’s responses and anticipations to social 
reality are patterned by their own perceived realities. People define their social 
                                                           
1
   Women with at least one child younger than 18 years old living at home. 
2
   The social system, which consists of different, often hierarchical, patterning structures, enables as 
well as constrains individuals in their actions. These different layers of autonomous society are 
human constructions themselves, and the social encounters of individuals and groups are able to 
restructure and reform such social institutions (Layder, 1994; also Giddens, 1984). 

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