Stop part-time work: women deserve better

Politicians were silent after the publication of the rreport from the Central Planning Bureau about young families who continue to cling to the traditional division of roles. As if our European Championship part-time work among mothers and the associated loss of income of 46 percent is not worth mentioning. However, the reverse is true. Sticking to the current division of roles is worrying, from an economic and socio-political perspective.

Anne Kingma is an economist and political scientist.

First of all, economic inequality between men and women increases the financial vulnerability of families. Dutch women work an average of 21 hours a week. On the basis of a full-time average income, it becomes difficult to support a family with that number of hours. This is also apparent from figures: 23 percent of working women are not economically independent. As a result, poverty lurks when the partner becomes unemployed. In European families where mothers do not work at all, the risk of poverty is on average twice as high as in families of two-income couples.