Microsoft Word Socialized Choices 31-12 pod docx

Outline of the thesis 
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and attitudes.  Besides these social influences, the quantitative analysis shows that 
a mother’s personal ideal family life strongly relates to her own general gender 
values (also socially embedded), her marital status and her educational level.  
The following chapter (chapter six) functions as an intermezzo: in this 
chapter, the separate path-analyses addressed in the previous two chapters 
(chapters four and five), are put into one large path-analysis. The aim of this 
chapter is to examine how the different main (dependent) variables of this study – 
namely labour market behaviour, work preferences, personal gender attitudes and 
general gender values – relate to each other, while allowing for control variables 
and also examining the influence of primary and secondary socialization factors. 
The results of this extensive analysis are described herein. An advantage of such 
analysis is that I can also explain the work attitudes ‘I work in order to be 
economically independent’ and ‘I like to work’ as dependent variables, which is 
relevant because these work attitudes are significantly related to a mother’s work 
preference.  In particular, the analysis shows that a mother’s adherence to 
financial autonomy can largely be explained by the influence of parental 
socialization during childhood.  
In chapter seven, which is also based on the qualitative analysis of the 39 in-
depth interviews with Dutch mothers, I address the range, direction and intensity 
of the social influence of significant others on mothers’ current gender and work 
attitudes. In this chapter it is shown how life histories of women, in particular of 
being exposed to the behaviour, attitudes, and support of their parents, and also 
the perceived support of their partner and people at work, have shaped and re-
enforced mothers’ present gender and work attitudes, referring to the process of 
self-selection and reality-maintenance. In other words, people (often 
subconsciously and automatically) look for social relationships that are likely to 
confirm their identities (Berger and Luckmann, 1967). 
In chapter eight (the synthesis), besides summarising the most important 
findings of the study, I also confront the similarities and differences of the 
qualitative findings and quantitative results, while simultaneously addressing the 
merits and limits of both research methods. While comparing the results of the 
two methods, the findings mainly demonstrate a mutual correspondence. The two 
methods supplement each other, providing a method through which a 
comprehensive and subtle understanding of the heterogeneous labour market 
decisions among Dutch mothers, as well as their relations with diverse 
socialization processes, could be understood. This section describes how mothers’ 
individual work preferences, that come to form the basis of their employment 
actions, are enmeshed in recognisable patterns of social interactions, having their 
roots in childhood and being intertwined with social institutions and cultural 
forms. 
The book ends with an epilogue (chapter nine) in which I consider the 
limitations of the study, pose some questions for future research, and address 
some relevant political implications. 

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Chapter 1 
Socio-structural developments in the Netherlands 1945-2012 in 
relation to female employment patterns 
1.1 Introduction 
In recent decades, especially in the Netherlands, there has been a remarkable shift 
in perspective from the notion of the worker as household wage earner – the 
(mostly male) breadwinner – towards that of the worker as an individual, 
regardless of household and family members. Women are now, like men, 
expected to spend the majority of their lives simultaneously performing the roles 
of spouse, worker and parent. Dutch government targets are set to encourage all 
individuals to work, and to reach an active labour force of 80 per cent in 2020, 
compared with the current labour market participation of 76 per cent
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 (Budget 
Ministry of Employment and Social Affairs, 2012). In 2011, 68 per cent of Dutch 
women (aged 20-64) belonged to the labour force compared to 85 per cent of men 
(Merens et al., 2012, p.53). However, society’s normative expectations of men 
and women remain gender specific, and the occupational, hierarchical and 
remuneration structure of the labour market is enduringly gender segregated 
(Merens et al., 2012).   
In the second half of the last century, the labour market participation of Dutch 
women increased enormously. In 1950, approximately 25 per cent of all women 
were employed, often in nursing, (basic) education, as shop assistants or as 
secretaries (Tijdens, 2006). Only 10 per cent of married Dutch women were in 
paid labour in 1947, and in 1960 only 7 per cent, compared with 30 per cent of 
married English women and 33 per cent of married French women in the same 
period (Kloek, 2009, p.195). Nowadays the labour market participation of 
married women is not monitored, as it is no longer considered relevant. Because 
‘marriage’ was previously almost synonymous with ‘family’, the corresponding 
relevant figure now in use is the labour market participation rate of women with 
children. This participation rate among women aged 20 to 64 years, and with at 
least one child younger than 18 years, was 72 per cent in 2011 (Merens et al., 
2012, p.56).   
Working mothers with a partner and children living at home work the fewest 
hours of all women, approximately 24 hours a week, whereas their partners work 
more than any other group of men: 40.6 hours a week. 
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 Additionally, men and 
                                                           
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  Percentage of people aged between 20 and 64 that are willing to work at least 12 hours a week. 
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Mothers without a partner work less, but where they do, they work more hours: 27.8 hours. Higher 
educated women work more compared to lower educated women. In 2011, 74 per cent of 

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