Taskforce Part-time Plus (TDP) Conclusions presented to ministers of Social Affairs and Employment / Family and social partners in March 2010 Pia Dijkstra & Désirée van Gorp

TDP in brief  Established by cabinet and social partners (employers organizations and labor unions).  Operational from March 2008 till March  Goal: cultural change re women joining labor force in bigger part-time jobs.  Reason: Dutch women relatively high employment rate (70%) though in sameller part-time jobs (<24 hrs p wk).

Problem statement  Combined with aging population and decline in babies born - impossible to sustain social security provisions.  Lack of financial independency of women.  Shortage of availability of employees in typical ‘female jobs’ such as healthcare and education.

Barriers to female labor participation  Contra dictionary legislation and regulations.  Social infrastructure lagging behind compared to a quick changing society (e.g. opening hours of shops, medical offices and government agencies).  Static collective schemes applying to dynamic employee-employers relationship.  Hard to change traditional culture of society at large on changing roles of women and men.

Recommendations  Cocktail of measures – shared responsibilities of government, social partners, business community and individual men and women.  Challenge is no longer to design the right solutions.  Challenge lies in making clear and consistent choices, whereby the principle of high ROI on participation in labor force of individual women must be the guide.  Solutions tailor made for different target groups who jointly share responsibility for increasing labor participation of women in bigger part-time (or full- time) jobs.

Government  Clear legal framework and the right provisions e.g. legal right to flexible working hours.  Expanding possibilities of paid parental leave.  Fiscal measures should target economic independence of women.  Improve collective facilities e.g. integrated day- care becomes the norm; child-care available during school holidays.

Businesses, organizations and institutions  Strategic HR planning for large and especially for SMEs.  Tailor made HR policies enabling to combine different roles and family responsibilities.  Include life-phase concept in HR policy.  Output driven evaluation of professional performance.

Social partners  Setting the example in a substantial way.  Pro-active and alert attitude towards increasing female labor participation.  Bridge the gap in salary differences for men and women (despite legal provisions the gap still exists in practice).  Individual agreements between employers and employees leading – collective labor agreements as a safety net.

Women  Increase economic independence.  Take on social responsibility in a society in which women have the luxury of making a choice for not working.  Clear vision on their choices and consequences.  Increase solidarity among women and mutual support.

Men  Take on more responsibility for family duties.  Make use of right on parental leave.  More awareness about vulnerability of a (largely) single income family (e.g. financial crisis).

Conclusion  TDP started out on bring about cultural change – bottom up.  However, we learned that cultural change is not the start of our journey but rather will be the result of implementing consistently and rapidly existing initiatives by all parties involved.  Top down – starting with a clear vision and holding involved stake holders responsible for quick implementation.