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Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers 
30 
Protestant, social democratic and neutral. Within these pillars, there was strong 
ideological agreement, and therefore pillarization was above all else a cultural 
feature of Dutch society. Each pillar had its own communication channels - 
television, newspapers, political parties, the church and so on – through which 
attitudes and norms were imposed, especially by the bourgeois, upon the Dutch 
population. As a result, the existing norms were able to be maintained. Despite 
the different ideologies and religions, there was a broad consensus about the 
natural division of labour between spouses in order to guarantee its future. 
Women’s natural role was to be a mother and a homemaker (Kremer, 2007, p.91; 
Plantenga, 1993; Pott-Buter, 1993).   
1.3 
1970-1980 Structural and cultural revolutions  
At the end of the 1960s, society started to change rapidly, in terms of both culture 
and morality, through processes of democratisation, secularisation, 
individualization and the end of the pillarization system, which all peaked in the 
1970s (Kremer, 2007). The period also became known for the end of formal 
barriers towards female employment, although some legal benefits for 
breadwinner families still remained (such as the breadwinner bonus), symbolising 
a double morality towards working mothers starting in this period within Dutch 
society.  
In the 1970s, the traditional self-evident routines and divisions of labour 
within families became heavily criticised. Although the work of a housewife had 
become physically much lighter through technical innovations, it became 
perceived as mentally exhausting, and led to a new condition - the housewife 
syndrome (Kloek, 2009, p.212). The cliché of the Dutch housewife was viewed 
differently: she was no longer praiseworthy because of her dedication to the 
household, but rather her isolation was now seen as sad (Kloek, 2009, p.210; also 
Brinkgreve, 1988). In 1967, a Dutch sociological journal, De Gids, published 
Joke Smit’s plea, entitled ‘the discontent of women’, in which the female figure 
pleaded against the drudgery and seclusion of housewifery, while promoting an 
equal division of labour and care between men and women. This article is often 
referred to as the start of the Second Feminist Wave in the Netherlands (Tijdens, 
2006).  
The most important aim of the women’s movement in the 1970s and 1980s 
was equality: equal opportunities and access to the labour market, equal division 
of power and an equal division of household labour and care between men and 
women. In some higher educated couples, the existing unequal power relations 
between men and women became reason for manifest conflict (Komter, 1990a). 
The following quote from the research of Komter (1990a, p.35), illustrates how 
young women still had their hopes set on marriage, but how simultaneously it had 
become permissible to openly express feelings of disappointment: 

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Chapter 1 - Socio-structural developments in the Netherlands 1945-2012 
31 
“Initially I thought it (marriage) would be exciting and romantic, doing things 
together. Yet, what a disappointment! […]  (laughs).. And I had many friends, 
who married as well in the same period, but after a month we stood crying at 
each other’s doorsteps, like: oh Lord, what has happened?” 
As in most other Western countries, from the 1970s onwards the Dutch labour 
market patterns of women started to change drastically. In the early 1960s, there 
had been a slight decline in female employment to 22 per cent; by 1970, women’s 
participation levels had already increased to 30 per cent (Tijdens, 2006). 
Important reasons for this growth include changes in the Dutch labour market. As 
the economy was rebuilt after World War II, and continued to boom throughout 
subsequent decades, the demand for labour increased. Initially only migrant 
workers were brought in, but slowly Dutch employers came increasingly to rely 
upon women, including those who were married. Key occupational features of the 
labour market changed at this time as well. Through technological developments, 
the agricultural and industrial sectors shrunk rapidly. The service sector economy 
of white-collar jobs also grew, especially in the Netherlands. Jobs in this sector 
could more easily be executed by women, and were also suitable on a part-time 
basis. This general process can be described as one creating jobs for secondary 
and part-time work, occupations which are sometimes referred to as ‘dead-end’ 
jobs, where one’s career is not the primary reason for taking on the work (Hakim, 
2000; Sanders and Beekes, 1993).  Yet, Tijdens (2006) argued that, on the whole, 
the creation of part-time work was a positive development, because for large 
groups of Dutch women it became possible to cross their private-public threshold, 
and enter the labour market.  
Through technological developments, it was not only the demand side of the 
labour market that changed significantly, as it opened up for women, but also the 
nature of unpaid work at home. Tijdens (2006) demonstrates how between 1948 
and 1973, technology paved the way for women to enter the labour market. 
Activities that were previously done by housewives at home, such as the 
production of food and garments, were moved across to the market sector, often 
produced in less-developed countries where wages were cheaper. In addition, 
technological developments within household appliances made domestic chores 
lighter, with the innovations of freezers, central heating, electric mixers, washing 
machines and dryers. Tijdens (2006) argues that the ensuing time reductions in 
household work were one of the most important explanations for the increased 
supply of women in the labour market, as women came to desire paid 
employment jobs. 
During the same period, the overall educational level of women also 
increased, due among other reasons to the specific financial system of education 
in the Netherlands, making it possible, at least in principle, for everyone to enter 
(higher) education. The common pattern was that women with higher education 
were more inclined to enter paid labour and to work longer hours.   

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