The safety net provided by the Dutch social-security system has been steadily withdrawing its protections against personal fnancial insecurity. Although the selfemployed can claim basic subsistence benefts, these are much lower than the work-related benefts employees contribute to. They can only be accessed after 3 months without work, and only when the applicant has neither assets nor an earning partner. Self-employed individuals are also entitled to a basic state pension, but not to disability benefts or a state earnings-indexed pension.21 While many European countries wholly or partly exclude the self-employed from such schemes, the Netherlands is among the countries with the fewest statutory provisions for this group. In Belgium the self-employed must join a social insurance fund of their choice; in Germany they can join sector-specifc disability insurance schemes.22

Self-employed persons in the Netherlands have generous tax allowances, designed to stimulate entrepreneurship and to allow them to individually cover themselves against occupational risks.23 In practice, few take out private disability insurance. This is not because the self-employed are foolhardy24 – many are deeply worried about incapacity to work – but because they are deterred by high premiums (due to negative selection), strict acceptance criteria and the small print in available policies: "Will I actually be paid if I become unable to work?"25 There are few alternatives to the commercial insurance market. A tiny proportion contribute to "mutual aid funds" (see Box 3.2); others are saving towards a private pension. Few make use of opportunities to join existing pension initiatives.26

Self-employed individuals without their own insurance cover and savings thus rely on the public purse when they are no longer able to work. Once they reach retirement age, they can draw a basic state pension although this on its own is barely enough to keep them out of poverty. In the event of unemployment or disability, they can only apply for a basic subsistence beneft if they have no earning partner to support them.27

26Berkhout & Euwals (2016), Goudswaard & Caminada (2017).

27Self-employed persons with assets can claim basic welfare benefts more easily than employees; there are special arrangements for this group (Self-Employed Workers Beneft Decree).

21Goudswaard & Caminada (2017).

22See also European Commission (2017).

23Rijksoverheid (2015).

24Conen & Debets (2019); see also Kremer (2017).

25According to the tno Self-Employment Survey (Van der Torre et al. 2019), four in ten have no unemployment or disability risk cover of any kind: they are not insured, do not deposit money in a mutual aid fund and have no investments or savings. The great majority cite high costs. Suffcient assets or the ability to fall back on a partner's income are rarely mentioned (Rijksoverheid 2015).

#### **Box 3.2 Mutual Aid Funds: Insurance for the Self-Employed**

Local mutual aid funds have recently emerged to provide independent entrepreneurs with an alternative to expensive private insurance against disability. Membership is limited to a maximum of 50 people, each contributing a small sum each month (between €34 and €112). The idea is that this keeps the arrangement transparent because everyone knows each other. In case of a member falling ill, the fund usually pays a modest amount (between €750 and €2500) per month for a maximum of 2 years. The frst mutual aid fund was set up in 2006; there are now about 500 across the Netherlands, with a total of more than 22,000 members.28

The Dutch interdepartmental policy study *Self-Employed Persons without Staff* concluded in 2015 that this group's distinctive tax arrangements and exemption from social insurance premiums sets them apart from regular employees. This applies at all income levels. A self-employed person with gross earnings equivalent to the national minimum wage will retain 87% of this income after statutory deductions, an employee just 72%. At twice the national average (modal) income, the self-employed retain 55% and employees, 46%. This does not take into account amounts reserved for private pension contributions and sickness or disability insurance, which are voluntary for the self-employed. But even when these are included, a self-employed person with a modal income retains approximately €11,000 a year more than an employee. On the other hand, the self-employed must offset potential loss of income during periods when they have no assignments. For their clients, using freelances can have signifcant cost benefts; calculations by the oecd29 show that doing so can reduce labour costs by up to 37% – although the actual amount depends on the individual entrepreneur's bargaining position and can thus vary considerably. For those at the bottom of the market, it is the employer who most likely benefts. At the top of the market, the advantage lies with the supplier.30

According to the interdepartmental policy study, the rapid growth of Dutch selfemployment may well have been fuelled by these tax and social insurance differentials. Depending on who is best able to take advantage of the arrangement, issuing and taking on assignments on a self-employed basis can be fnancially attractive for clients, workers, or both. The study concludes: "On balance, the effect upon the government fnances of the growth in the number of self-employed persons without

28 ten Houte de Lange (2018, July 3); van der Meer (2017); www.broodfonds.nl

29oecd (2019a).

30The oecd calculates in its report for the Netherlands Independent Commission on the Regulation of Work: "Considering an unmarried individual without children and earning the gross average wage for employees, the frm could pay a total employment cost of eur 40,911 (with a payment wedge of 22%) for an unincorporated self-employed contractor instead of eur 64,960 for a standard employee (with a payment wedge of 51%). This represents a total labour cost saving for the frm of 37%" (oecd 2019a: 21).

staff is very likely to be negative."31 Although this group currently makes scant use of the benefts system, this could change in the future. As this would undermine public support for the system, there is no justifcation for retaining differential treatment. As the same study points out, "From the protection point of view, in many cases there is little reason to treat self-employed workers and employees differently. The self-employed, like employees, run health risks at work and experience similar problems in assessing their sickness, disability and longevity risks."32 The exclusion of the self-employed from the Dutch social-security system – that is, up until the Covid-19 pandemic – not only affects them as individuals; it may prove detrimental to the system's long-term solidarity and fnancial sustainability.

## *3.2.1 Workers on Temporary Contracts*

Are workers on temporary contracts better covered by the Dutch social-security system? While they have proportional access to its provisions, the rules around benefts and incapacity insurance are insuffciently geared to today's fuid and hybrid labour market.33 If on-call workers have monthly fuctuations in their earnings – sometimes placing them above subsistence level and sometimes well below it – they face bureaucratic hurdles when applying for benefts to supplement their income. Similarly, those who go from one temporary job to the next and claim benefts between contracts must face labyrinthine rules that generate a great deal of uncertainty. The social-security system seems incapable of providing the level of fexibility needed to cope with the fckleness of temporary work.

While temporary workers have a full package of rights on paper, things are not always so clear-cut in practice. Take expectant parents: they have a legal right to parental leave but their temporary contracts are not automatically extended for the period of leave.34 Employees on extended sick leave are entitled to assistance reintegrating into the workplace, but only for the duration of their contracts. What is the chance that their employer will keep them on once the contract has expired? In practice, formal legal equivalence is often not what it seems.

The social-security rules are often cited as a reason for the burgeoning fexible labour market in the Netherlands.35 The prevalence of temporary work, for example,

31 "The emergence of individual self-employment has, to a limited extent, been accompanied by positive external effects. On the other side of the coin, however, are lower tax and national insurance yields and higher expenditure on tax allowances. On balance, the effect on the public fnances of the growth in the number of self-employed individuals is very likely to be negative" (Rijksoverheid 2015: xiii).

32Rijksoverheid (2015): xiii.

33See, for example, Bannink (2018).

34Plantenga (2017).

35The prospect of entitlement to a state pension or benefts can make individual self-employment an attractive option. See Kremer (2017), Conen & Debets (2019).

is often attributed to the country's stringent rules surrounding sickness and incapacity.36 When workers with permanent contracts fall ill, employers must continue paying their salaries for 2 years and help them to reintegrate into work. While this arrangement has cut the incidence of long-term sick leave, it also makes especially small and medium-sized enterprises hesitant about hiring people on a permanent basis. While research commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs shows that 75% of employers are insured against long-term sick leave, 45% still see it as an obstacle to recruitment37 – the fnancial obligations less than the labyrinthine paperwork and the reintegration requirement. This then begs the question why it is mainly larger companies that make use of fexible contracts.38 Having studied all the possible explanations for the Netherlands' leading position in fexible work, Paul de Beer concludes that it is mainly because companies copy each other.39

For all workers in the Netherlands, the social-security system itself has become a source of insecurity.40 Compared to other countries, the Netherlands has sound arrangements for unemployment – albeit primarily for the frst years of joblessness; the longer-term unemployed are better off in Belgium, Germany and Sweden.41 But in recent decades, every change to the Dutch social-security system has reined in its provisions.42 The changes have also been continuous: the rules around occupational disability benefts alone underwent 16 major revisions between 1995 and 2010.43 However justifed some of these amendments may be, for ordinary citizens they reduce the continuity and predictability of their social rights. Each incoming government has announced the further retrenchment of social-security along with stricter rules.

## **3.3 Repair or Revise**

The fexibilization of work, in particular the rise of individual self-employment, has brought renewed urgency to the long-standing debate over the need for a socialsecurity system better suited to the modern labour market. There are essentially two options: repair the current system or completely revise it. Which is preferrable largely depends on how one sees the growth in the number of the self-employed. Are these 1.1 million largely uninsured independent workers an unintended consequence of recent laws and regulations, so that it should be possible through legal

36oecd (2018a).

37Brummelkamp et al.(2014).

38See Koster (2020).

39 de Beer (2018b); see also Dekker (2017) and Chap. 7.

40 van Lieshout (2016).

41oecd (2015c).

42See also ter Haar (2017, February 2).

43Vrooman (2010).

restrictions, stricter enforcement and the elimination of tax advantages to reduce their numbers? If so, the favoured option might be to repair the system, for instance by requiring the self-employed to insure themselves against incapacity. Here the Netherlands could follow the Belgian example. There was such a requirement for a brief period around the turn of the millennium,44 abolished as the costs were perceived to be too high. It could perhaps be reinstated in some form.

If such a system is introduced, all self-employed individuals would have to pay into it and fulfl its other obligations. Social insurance of this kind only works with a viable level of participation and a fair spread of good versus bad risks; even those with a relatively low chance of becoming incapacitated would have to contribute, precluding any kind of voluntary opt-out arrangement – which would also be unwise for psychological reasons. In *Why Knowing What to Do is Not Enough*, 45 the wrr outlined human limitations such as foresight, assessing risks and converting knowledge into action – limitations that also apply to the self-employed. Solidarity among the self-employed would also be undermined if participation in a national disability insurance scheme were voluntary.

This combination of fnancial, psychological and social factors lend support to the second option: revising the social-security system to make it universal, covering all workers and citizens regardless of employment status so that the self-employed participate as a matter of course.46 This is the alternative most likely to be favoured by those who consider the 1.1 million self-employed as a more or less inevitable (and irreversible) product of the contemporary labour market. As more and more people alternate between or concurrently juggle temporary contracts, selfemployment, part-time work and care responsibilities, a social-security system geared solely to contracted employment is even less appropriate; the system needs to be realigned to accommodate all working and life situations (see Chap. 5). Changes to the location, organization and meaning of work all call for a form of social security no longer determined by one's source of income or contractual arrangements. The diversity of work in today's world requires a universal base of certainties.

"Contract-neutral" social security could be achieved through a system in which everyone participates in the most basic forms of social provision. It would involve a minimum level of government-organized insurance and investment applying to all citizens – not just the active workforce – to protect them fnancially against illness, disability and unemployment, to provide them with a pension, to enable them to

44The 1997 Self-Employed Persons' Disability Insurance Act applied to everyone in this category, whether or not they employed staff of their own. The statute was repealed in 2004.

45Keizer et al. (2019).

46This is the option preferred by the membership of zzp Nederland, an association representing the individual self-employed. More than 82% of its membership is against compulsory occupational disability insurance; 90% would rather see basic provision for all workers so that the self-employed can take out optional supplementary insurance if they wish. See www.zzp-nederland.nl/nieuws/ achterban-zzp-nederland-geen-aov-plicht-maar-positief-over-basisvoorziening- arbeidsongeschiktheid-voor-werkenden.

organize their care responsibilities and to allow them to pursue training to strengthen their position in the labour market. On top of these standard statutory arrangements, people could take out supplementary insurance according to their own wishes and possibilities. Self-employed workers who cherish their autonomy would retain the freedom to make their own choices, as would all other workers. As it consists of a basic product with additional options and toppings, this variant of social security is also known as the "cappuccino model".47

Any future reset of the social-security system would require further elaboration of its fnancing and of the roles played by employers' organizations and trade unions, which could focus more on personal development, learning on the job and better reintegration following long-term sick leave. A further advantage of a reset is that it could address other urgent issues in the labour market, such as intergenerational solidarity, migration and the burden of social premiums.

## **3.4 Security of Employment and Professional Development**

Learning on the job is necessary to improve both security of income and employment. In workplace training and professional development, the Netherlands compares reasonably well to other European countries; only the Scandinavian countries tend to score better.48 Workers undergo training and attend courses fairly frequently, often paid for by the employer: four in ten have done so recently.49 Informal learning is often more important than formal instruction; professional development is not just about returning to school or following compulsory courses, but about developing one's abilities in the workplace: learning by doing, through peer advice and feedback from managers and colleagues.50 Such informal learning, however, seems to have declined slightly between 2004 and 2017.51 According to the oecd, it is doubtful whether Dutch workers' professional development is suffcient for an advanced knowledge economy.52

While lifelong learning has been on the Dutch agenda for fve decades, participation in courses and training has levelled off since the beginning of the century. At present, there are some 140 training and development funds in more than 100

47The "cappuccino model" and its variants have been debated for some time. For their advantages and disadvantages, see Geleijnse et al. (1993), cpb (2005). For a discussion of its underlying principles, see Van der Veen (2016). The Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis has described several variants from a fexible labour-market perspective (Euwals et al. 2016). The IBO report (Rijksoverheid 2015) also describes several variants, including a system that begins with the worker's degree of self-reliance.

48Eurofound (2017).

49 van Echtelt et al. (2016).

50 de Grip (2015, June).

51 de Grip et al. (2018).

52oecd (2017).

sectors, contributing fnancially to the professional training of workers and sometimes also offering courses and training projects themselves. Take-up on the good schemes is about 45%; on the bad ones, it is virtually zero, with very few people even being aware of their existence.53 In the context of lifelong learning, it is crucial that training can facilitate movement between sectors. In 2019, the Dutch government allocated more than €200 million to provide everyone in the country with a personal development budget.

One problem is that those who are most in need of training are the least likely to receive it. Highly educated workers continue to have more opportunities for both formal and informal learning; people with the least schooling, on temporary contracts, ethnic minorities and those suffering health problems have fewer chances to develop professionally.54 Particularly agency temps and on-call workers have virtually no chance to learn on the job. Flexible contracts have affected employers' willingness to invest in staff, especially for formal learning.55 Employers may also be hiring workers on a temporary basis so they don't have to invest in them.56

Future-oriented learning is not about teaching everyone hard technological skills, but the human competencies needed to thrive in the service economy: how to solve problems, negotiate, persuade, deal with others, and to cope with one's own and other people's emotions. Although not everyone needs to learn to code, people need to know something about robots and artifcial intelligence: what they can do, what they cannot do, and how people can work with technology. As tasks and duties will inevitably evolve, everyone needs to be able to learn on the job. Above all, people must learn how to learn (see Chap. 6).

It is a myth that the formally less educated are less able to develop in the workplace. Learning often occurs naturally as tasks and duties evolve. High-school graduates are often consigned to jobs with scant learning potential. But when managers believe they can do more and better, and support them in this, their performance improves and they are often just as satisfed with their work as their more highly educated peers.57 Research has consistently shown that people, regardless of previous educational attainment, learn and develop more when the workplace is organized to support professional development.58

Learning on the job and professional development require good colleagues and supportive bosses as well as a sense that there is something to learn. Professional development should be seen as a means to gain and retain control over one's working life and as a way to bring out the best in people within the organizational setting rather than an obligation to bolster one's employability (see Chap. 4).

53According to the Grip, "good" funds also "draw attention to the availability of that money and the possibilities". See Bouter (2019).

54 van Echtelt et al. (2016).

55Boermans et al. (2017).

56See also Dekker (2017).

57Boermans et al. (2017).

58Gallie & Zhou (2013), Felstead et al. (2016).

## **3.5 Wage Development**

Wages in the Netherlands up until the Covid-19 pandemic were rising after years of stagnation. Wage development depends on many factors, among them the relative strength of workers, employers and their representative organizations. International comparison reveals that strong trade unions bring higher wages and greater pay equality.59 In many countries, however, organized labour has long been in decline and unions are struggling to attract young workers in particular. Union membership in the Netherlands has plummeted, from 37% of the workforce in the late 1970s to the current 18%.60 According to Paul de Beer: "To attract more members, they have to show that they can do more for their members. But to be able to do that, they need more members. It is diffcult for unions to work their way out of this situation… Recruitment is usually indirect: people join a union because they are asked by colleagues who are already members. As unions shrink, their presence in the workplace declines and that reduces their ability to recruit."61

The weakening of the trade-union movement is a concern for employers' organizations which see staff involvement and support as indispensable. The Dutch employers' association awvn is thus seeking to help unions recruit new members. In 2018, a think-tank organized by the awvn, consisting of about 60 people from academia, politics, the trade-union movement and business, advanced ten proposals including "when signing their contract, new employees are offered trial membership of a union of their choice for a period of one year. Employers would encourage this by providing extensive information when hiring people."62

Until the Covid-19 crisis, wages in the Netherlands were rising moderately, although not equally for all. According to Statistics Netherlands, the average disposable income of households with a high-school graduate primary breadwinner was recovering more slowly than in other households: "In 2016 they had average income 4.6% higher than in 2013. For households whose main breadwinner had post-secondary or higher education, those fgures were 5.3% and 5.7%, respectively. More and more people have found or returned to work since the crisis. For those with post-secondary or higher education, that usually means a greater rise in income than for the less well-educated"63.

Wage inequality is not a matter of education alone. Wage differentials between professions are widening,64 as was highlighted by primary-school teachers

59Kalleberg (2018).

60 de Beer & Berntsen (2019).

61 van Agteren (2017, October 26).

62awvn (2018).

63 cbs (2018b, June 7).

64Bol (2017).

demanding salaries more in line with their secondary-school colleagues in their recent wave of industrial action. Wages particularly lag behind in jobs involving a lot of repetitive or closely supervised work.

## *3.5.1 A Living Income*

According to a survey by the professional association v&vn, 65 more than two-thirds of nurses and social care workers in the Netherlands believe they earn too little. Many can only make ends meet with the premium they receive for working evening, night and weekend shifts.66 Their work requires commitment and dedication, is essential for society, and is diffcult or impossible to automate.67 Feeling insuffciently valued and rewarded, some look for other jobs; important services and facilities are thus unable to fnd enough staff.

The Dutch statutory minimum wage has been falling further behind average (modal) income for decades.68 But compared to many other European countries, few workers in the Netherlands live in poverty: about 5.3% of the working population, or 320,000 in all.69 Although this proportion has been growing steadily since 1990, it remains lower than in Germany (9.4%) or the United Kingdom (12.4%). But it is higher than in Denmark (3.5%) or Belgium (4.3%).70 The working poor in the Netherlands are often poorly skilled and/or have migration backgrounds, and work mostly in catering, retail and transport, and sometimes in the public sector.71 While their growing numbers can in part be attributed to their wages not rising as fast as the wages of other groups, the fexible labour market and the gig economy has created new groups of the working poor. More than one in nine self-employed persons are at risk of poverty.72

65v&vn (2017).

66More and more people must work at night, which can be detrimental to their health and social life. The Netherlands Health Council observed in an advisory report (Gezondheidsraad 2017) that "Nearly 1.3 million people sometimes or regularly work at night. Night work disrupts the body's circadian rhythm, which can lead to adverse health effects."

67Graeber (2018) refers to the "caring classes".

68oecd (2015b) and data from Eurostat (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index. php?title=Minimum\_wage\_statistics/nl#Algemeen\_overzicht)

69Poverty is defned using the "modest but adequate" criterion formulated by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research. This is based on a "basic needs" budget to cover expenditures on essentials such as food, clothing, housing and insurance, plus a minimal amount for leisure and social participation. In 2014 the norm for a single person was €1,063 per month. The "working poor" are people in paid work living in a household classifed as "in poverty", excluding schoolchildren and students with a part-time job. See scp (3 October 2018): www.scp.nl/Nieuws/ Aandeel\_werkende\_armen\_in\_Nederland\_gegroeid\_en\_overtreft\_dat\_van\_Denemarken\_ en\_Belgi

70Vrooman et al. (2018).

71Snel (2017).

72 cbs (2019e, March 5).

## *3.5.2 How New Technologies and Flexible Contracts Affect Income*

Technological developments affect distinct groups in the labour market in different ways. Wages for jobs largely involving routine tasks are falling behind those that require problem-solving skills.73 Wiljan van den Berge and Bas ter Weel74 of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis predict that some tasks now performed by the better-educated will also be replaced by new technology.

Job polarization can be exacerbated by the greater use of robots and artifcial intelligence.75 As some workers with post-secondary education face shrinking opportunities in the labour market, this puts pressure on workers with lesser qualifcations – and their incomes. At the same time, new services and products are also increasing demand for less educated personnel.76 Much also depends on the choices made by companies, institutions and governments about how technology is used: to complement or substitute human labour (see Chaps. 6 and 7).77

The fexibilization of labour puts pressure on wages. While economists often assume that employers pay higher wages for insecure work, this is rarely the case.78 Not all self-employed individuals have the bargaining power to enforce fair fees for their labour, especially in times of high unemployment. This group also lacks collective means to enforce better pay. This is also true for temporary workers, for whom a succession of temporary contracts does not automatically lead to incrementally higher pay, as is generally the case in collective agreements covering permanent staff. The Dutch central bank, among many others, has concluded that the fexibilization of labour exerts downwards pressure on wages.79

73Fouarge (2017).

74 van den Berge & ter Weel (2015a).

75 van den Berge & ter Weel (2015b).

76 van den Berge & ter Weel (2015a: 107).

77 "Unlike replacing technologies, which take over the tasks previously done by labor, augmenting technologies increase the units of a worker's output without any displacement occurring, unless demand for a given product or service becomes saturated" (Frey 2019: 13).

78Kalleberg (2011).

79dnb (2018) writes on its website: "An analysis of data from eight Dutch industrial sectors over the period 1996–2015 shows that the fall in the wage share is linked to increased labour-market fexibility. One possible explanation for this is the weaker bargaining position of workers in the fexible shell, compared with employees on permanent contracts."

## **3.6 Conclusion: Control over Income Requires More Security and Less Inequality**

Neutral Positive Negative

Income security is a crucial condition for good work. While work in the Netherlands is generally rewarded fairly, there are big differences in the fnancial value placed on various tasks and professions. These differences may be exacerbated by the automation and fexibilization of work; wage inequality may thus grow in the future. Although learning on the job and professional development are necessary for all workers to maintain their employability, they are still not the norm, most glaringly for workers who are already vulnerable. Despite the Netherlands' relatively low unemployment rate – which stood at 3% until the Covid-19 crisis – there remain concerns about income security, mostly centring on the rise of precarious work. Although employability in the Netherlands remains high compared to many other countries, job security is low – a product of the growing number of self-employed individuals and the expansion of temporary work and the gig economy.

The uncertainties associated with the fexible labour market are unevenly distributed: there are sharp divisions by education, age and sex. While almost everyone wants job security, the availability of secure positions has plummeted, especially for the less educated. Nor is the current social-security system equipped to deal with the uncertainties. The Netherlands needs a modern system incorporating risk-sharing and protection for all categories of workers; this means revisiting the responsibilities of employers, workers and the state (see the recommendations in Chap. 8).

#### **A Day at Work: The Order Picker**

Consumers no longer need to leave the comfort of their homes to make purchases. Supermarkets and department stores have their empty shelves restocked automatically. Distribution centres – the large square sheds that have sprouted across the countryside – are the hubs in the enormous logistics operations that make this happen. Behind their anonymous façades, distribution centres are a hive of activity, with truck drivers delivering goods, unloaders taking them inside, stackers shelving the products and order pickers collecting items to be sent to customers.

Anke and Jos are order pickers at a distribution centre for a department store chain. Some 350 people are employed here, spread across two huge warehouses: one for large items, with electric pallet trucks whizzing around, and the other for smaller products.

Much has changed over the 20 years Anke and Jos have been picking orders here. At frst they walked around with pen and paper; then came handheld scanners. Now almost everything is automated. Each picker works in his or her allocated section of the aisle between the shelving racks. An automated system sends them crates. On their computer screen they see which articles to place in each crate, and in what quantity. Flashing red and green lights indicate where these products are located in the racks. At the touch of a button, the packed crate moves on and the next one appears.

"We don't have to walk as much and this system is less prone to errors", says Jos. "But it's not as enjoyable. Having a quick chat or a joke with your workmates is almost impossible now." This is tough for Jos because what he likes about work is the social contact. Now it is limited to three breaks per shift and further hindered by language barriers. As the centre increasingly employs people of different nationalities, speaking Dutch is no longer a requirement to work here. The products are all numbered and the headsets can be tuned to three languages: Dutch, English and Polish.

With all the changes, the workload has increased. There is a personal productivity target – 650 crates a day – and the computer can track everyone minute by minute. "Whenever there's a mistake", Anke says, "they can look back and see who made it." The central display in the warehouse is showing that one employee has done nothing for 8 min. "Maybe he's gone to the toilet", comments Anke.

Prompters come around several times a day to tell workers how they are performing. While Jos can feel them watching, he claims it does not make him work faster. "Although of course I'd rather hear that I'm doing well than that I haven't done enough." Some companies pay a performance bonus, but not this one. The pickers earn the minimum wage, or not much more. Jos would not recommend this job to others. "You work yourself to death for a pittance. It's hard to support a family on these wages."

Anke and Jos both have permanent contracts, but these are now few and far between. All new staff are agency temps and are out if they do not meet their targets. If they perform well for some time, they can apply for permanent positions.

The order pickers work morning and evening shifts, currently only on normal working days although there are plans to introduce night and Saturday shifts. There are no specifc educational requirements. It is not a diffcult job, says Anke, "but you do need a feel for it". The work, however, is physically demanding. The pickers must still walk many kilometres a day and lift a lot – "it makes a difference whether you have to pick up tights or plates" – and the pace set by the red and green lights requires their full focus through each shift. At the end of the day they return home completely worn out. Many of their colleagues are seeing physiotherapists because of back, shoulder or wrist complaints.

Anke and Jos wonder whether they will make it to retirement age in this job. But even after all these years, Anke retains her enthusiasm. But she adds, "If I found something else less physically demanding tomorrow, I'd take it." This is not a job you get better at the longer you do it, she explains. You learn it in your training period and it remains pretty much the same thereafter until at some point, as you get older, you start "sagging". The system registers that you have slowed down. If you have been there for a long time and have a good reason to take it a little easier, the frm takes this into account. You can be put "on cardboard" (clearing away empty boxes) or the pallet trucks. But if your productivity decreases long-term, you must leave.

In the summer, temperatures in the warehouses can reach tropical levels. People sometimes pass out. With all her experience, Anke keeps an eye on the new workers. "They forget to drink because they're so focused on hitting their target."

*Order pickers are typically paid €1600-€2000 gross per month. The average (modal) income in the Netherlands in 2020 will be just over €2800 per month, excluding holiday pay. Most order pickers only have secondary education. There is a shortage of workers in this sector, attributable primarily to the physical demands and monotony of the work. The introduction of electronic monitoring systems has increased the workload. While automation is a long-term trend in the industry, the number of jobs is not declining proportionally. A large Dutch supermarket chain reopened one of its distribution centres at the end of 2018 as an almost fully-automated operation. Where once it had employed 450 people, there are now just a handful. But shortly afterwards, the same frm announced plans to build an entirely new distribution centre where, from 2020, 1000 order pickers will be needed to meet the growing demand for home deliveries.*

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# **Chapter 4 Control Over Work**

"Busy, busy, busy." Ask people about their working lives and they will often respond with this staccato summary. With titles such as *Busy: How to Thrive in a World of Too Much*, *One Second Ahead*, *Mindfulness at Work* and *Crazy Busy*, self-help books promise to make our lives less stressful. More and more workplaces are offering courses in yoga and mindfulness or stress tests to help people stay on top of the pressure.

Compared to their counterparts in most European countries, Dutch workers are doing quite well. Their workloads are average, many enjoy a relatively high degree of autonomy, their tasks are varied, and most receive support from colleagues and managers. Only in the Scandinavian countries, especially in Finland, do people enjoy more control over their work.1 Yet burnout is on the rise. Moreover, if almost half of all workers report that they lack suffcient autonomy, is their work really good enough? Are more people losing control over their work, or does this problem only affect specifc groups concealed below the surface of the overall averages? This chapter explores these questions and examines how the automation, fexibilization and intensifcation of labour may affect people's control over work.

## **4.1 Busier than Ever? The Intensifcation of Work**

The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientifc Research2 fnds the "burden of work" among Dutch workers to be high and continuous (Fig. 4.1). Almost four in ten claim they frequently have to work hard and rapidly, for example to meet successive deadlines. This is the narrow, quantitative defnition of the intensifcation of work. If we include a qualitative defnition of intensifcation, almost eight out of ten

1Houtman et al. (2017); see also Eurofound (2017).

2Houtman et al. (2020).

**Fig. 4.1** The intensifcation of work, 2007–2018 Source: Houtman et al., 2020

workers fnd their work intellectually taxing, while one in ten consider their work emotionally challenging, placing them in tough situations that demand a high level of engagement.

Working people have not suddenly become busier. Their working lives were already demanding but have become more so over the past decade. In 2008, 34.5% of working people reported that they had to work fast; by 2018, this fgure was 38.6%. The prevalence of mentally taxing work declined slightly in the same period, from 81.8% to 76.6%. The opposite applies to emotionally demanding work; its prevalence rose from 9.4% to 10.7%, particularly affecting workers in service and caring professions.

People who have emotionally demanding jobs also often consider their work rewarding and valuable. At the same time, they are far more likely to experience symptoms of burnout.3 Fig. 4.2 shows aspects of the quality of work associated with burnout. Although the term "hard work" is still largely used to refer to physically demanding activity, the hard work in today's service economy is found primarily in intellectually and emotionally strenuous jobs.

These statistical time series apply to the entire workforce and are based on what people report. But work often changes of its own accord, unnoticed. These fgures may thus also refect human adaptability, of becoming accustomed to our tasks. Drawing on specialist expertise,4 Van den Groenendaal et al. has mapped out the changes over recent decades in six common occupations: homecare worker,

3Pot and Smulders (2019).

4Conversations with labour experts and information from the Claim Assessment and Assurance System (cbbs) operated by t e Employee Insurance Agency (uwv).

**Fig. 4.2** Relationship between quality of work and burnout complaints Note: All variables are measured on a three or four-point scale, unless otherwise indicated with "binary scale" or "ratio scale" Source: Pot & Smulders, 2019

primary-school teacher, IT systems administrator, mobile security patrol offcer, domestic truck driver and order picker.5 In all six occupations, workers now face stricter quality requirements, greater time pressure and more emotionally demanding tasks; they all need better communication skills, greater stress-resistance and keener judgement of human nature. The only burden to have decreased is the physical workload. Although observed across the board, these trends differentially affect the surveyed occupations (see Box 4.1 and the professional portraits between the chapters in this book).

5These professions were chosen as they vary in educational and gender profle.

#### **Box 4.1 Changing Requirements in Four Professions**

The mobile security patrol offcer must monitor a greater area and more premises than ever before. They now do this alone, carrying hand-held computers to remain in direct communication with the control room. They also need to be able to de-escalate confrontations with members of the public, who have become increasingly aggressive towards them.

The homecare worker must deal more frequently with illness and death due to their ageing client base. This makes the job emotionally tougher. At the same time, their schedules have become tighter – to the extent that these often part-time employees are inclined to help clients on their own time.

The primary-school teacher spends as many hours in the classroom as in the past, but now with much more diverse pupils: children from different countries and with a wide range of special needs. They have been required to take on a lot of additional work including extracurricular activities and updating the electronic student monitoring system.

The IT systems administrator has become busier because technology is increasingly central to organizations. Under greater pressure from bosses, clients and colleagues, they must deal promptly with incidents and consult more widely with a variety of people.6

## **4.2 Autonomy as Achilles' Heel**

Whether people can cope with the quantitative and qualitative intensifcation of their work depends, among other things, on whether they feel they receive enough in return. The "burden of work" is not simply a synonym for workload but refers to the strain caused by the mismatch between task requirements (a lot of work and diffcult work) and opportunities for control (the extent to which the worker has a say over how they do their work).7 While workers may be as busy as ever, this need not be a problem so long as they feel in charge, that they have a certain degree of freedom in their activities. As Ulbo de Sitter wrote in his 1981 book *Op weg naar nieuwe fabrieken en kantoren* (*Towards New Factories and Offces*): "Simply put, it is not the problems which cause the stress but the obstacles to solving them."8 We thus refer to an appropriate degree of freedom; not everyone thrives by being part of a self-managing team, while too much autonomy can itself cause stress.9

Compared to other European countries, Dutch workplaces offer a high degree of autonomy; only Finland scores higher.10 Nevertheless, almost half of all workers in the

6 van den Groenendaal et al. (2020).

7Wiezer et al. (2012).

8Quoted in Pot (2019a).

9Kubicek et al. (2017).

10Houtman et al. (2017); Eurofound (2017).

**Fig. 4.3** Lack of autonomy by level of education, 2007–2018 Source: Houtman et al., 2020

Netherlands still say that they lack suffcient autonomy. This fgure has grown in recent years, from 38.3% in 2007 to 44.3% in 2018.11 Declining autonomy is most pronounced among high-school graduates, who were already more likely (59.2%) to report being too strictly regulated and having too little space and freedom in their work (Fig. 4.3). The same applies to 47.7% of Dutch workers with post-secondary vocational education. A striking 31.1% of university graduates also say they lack autonomy at work – a percentage that has also been rising. Women on average have less autonomy in their work than men (Fig. 4.4), largely due to the professions and sectors in which they work. Along with hospitality and transport, work in female-dominated areas of the public sector – healthcare and education – provide the least occupational freedom.12 These felds also have a relatively high percentage of personnel – almost a quarter – whose work combines limited autonomy with demanding requirements: a toxic combination that leads to high levels of stress and absenteeism.13

Declining autonomy can hinder workers as they try to manage the intensifcation of their working lives. Seth van den Bossche and colleagues warn of its economic consequences: "Since autonomous personnel are often more innovative and productive, it is important to ensure that employees retain suffcient autonomy, especially in times of crisis."14 Work only brings out the best in people when they have control over how they do this work (see Chap. 2).

11Houtman et al. (2020).

12 tno (2018).

13 tno (2016).

14 van den Bossche et al. (2015: 350).

**Fig. 4.4** Lack of autonomy by gender, 2007–2018 Source: Houtman et al., 2020

## *4.2.1 Declining Autonomy at Work: Explanations*

How can it be that worker autonomy in the Netherlands is falling across the board? One possible explanation is the fexibilization of the labour market, in particular the growth of temporary and agency jobs.15 Temporary staff generally have less control over how they do their work; when people are insecure in their positions, employers can exert greater pressure.16 In this light, growing self-employment can be seen as a strategy by workers to maintain their freedom. Across Europe, "wanting autonomy" is the leading reason why people go freelance.17 Self-employed individuals often fnd work organizations too restrictive, bureaucratic or hierarchical, and prefer the freedom that comes with "being their own boss".18 The greater job satisfaction they experience, and the fact that they less frequently suffer health problems and burnout, is mainly due to the control they exercise over their work.

The self-employed are the canaries in the coal mine of work organizations - to bring up another "bird metaphor" (see Chap. 1). When former employees strike out on their own, it may signal insuffcient workplace autonomy. Research suggests that if companies and institutions allowed their employees as much autonomy as

15 van den Bossche et al. (2015).

16Gallie (2017).

17 Josten and Vlasblom (2017); Benz and Frey (2008).

18Kremer et al. (2017c).

freelances, they would be just as satisfed with their work.19 Not only would employees feel less incentive to leave; the organization would beneft from giving staff greater initiative. Werner Liebregts and Erik Stam refer to "intrapreneurs" – enterprising employees within organizations who "can impel the growth of (new or established) companies" – who "may go on to become independent entrepreneurs later in their career. Whatever their position, working people must remain creative to generate new value. They are increasingly responsible for the investments made in their own careers. In addition to investing in expertise for specifc tasks, this also means investing in entrepreneurship as well as collaborating in new contexts so as to create new tasks."20

Another explanation for declining workplace autonomy lies in New Public Management – the infltration of management techniques and models from the private sector into the public and semi-public sectors.21 Although meant to improve services, control costs and provide greater transparency for taxpayers, the introduction of accountability systems, protocols and performance measurements adversely affect the quality of work.22 The "organized mistrust" they refect results in ballooning administrative workloads for public-sector professionals, combined with shrinkage of their discretionary space. The control the government seeks to exert over them comes at the cost of the control they want over their own work.

The Professional Ethics Foundation (*Stichting Beroepseer*) believes that the practices of New Public Management have led to "professional distress", with experts in areas such as mental healthcare, education, youth services and science witnessing the "de-souling" of their professions.23 This has repercussions not only for professionals personally, but for the public at large. As the Council for Health and Society reiterates, the erosion of the quality of professionals' work will ultimately have adverse consequences for the quality of public healthcare and other services.24

The autonomy of many workers in the private sector has declined as well, most notably affecting workers in logistics, business services and retail. Global competition encourages revenue models and work processes that privilege short-term thinking and accountability to "impatient capital".25 This means that employers embrace

19Parent-Thirion et al. (2020).

20Liebregts and Stam (2017).

21Osborne (2010); Pollitt and Bouckaert (2004).

22wrr (2004); Tummers et al. (2009); Noordegraaf and Steijn (2013); Bredewold et al. (2018); Tjeenk Willink (2018).

23The foundation's frst publication, *Beroepszeer: Waarom Nederland niet goed werkt* (*Professional Distress: Why The Netherlands Is Not Working Well*; Van den Brink et al. 2005), marked the beginning of a long series of important studies. For more titles, see www.beroepseer.nl. 24 rvs (2019).

25Kalleberg (2011).

temporary work and assume greater, more structured control over work processes. Especially in the wake of the 2008 fnancial crisis, many frms sought to "tighten the reins"26 – visible in the above-mentioned changing protocols governing the work of security guards and truck drivers.27

Finally, the use of new technologies can result in declining autonomy, particularly at the bottom end of the labour market. Firms today often use technology to monitor their employees, reducing their control and freedom at work.28 Truck drivers are required by law to have a tachograph in the vehicle – a device that allows the employer to keep track of their driving behaviour, location and effciency. Order pickers at distribution centres are monitored so the frm can see how many items they pick per hour; those who fail to meet productivity targets rarely have their contracts extended.29 These are examples of the Taylorization of work, in which people increasingly function as "robots made of fesh". Technology can increase the pace of work and constrain workers' room for manoeuvre while making it easier for management to penalize them if they perform below set standards.30

But technology can also help increase workers' autonomy and scope for control. In the chemical industry, Eurofound31 research across fve countries found that digitization gives employees greater latitude in the conduct, documentation and monitoring of processes. The use of cobots – collaborative robots that work with people – can make human tasks less routine and physically demanding as well as more challenging and interesting, pushing workers to draw on their teamworking, analytical, creative and problem-solving skills. Technology can thus take work in either direction: more or less interesting, augmenting or undermining workers' autonomy (Box 4.2).32

26 van den Bossche et al. (2015).

27 van den Groenendaal et al. (2020).

28 van den Bossche et al. (2015).

29 van den Groenendaal et al. (2020).

30Gallie (2017).

31Eurofound (2018).

32Went et al. (2015); see Chap. 7.

#### **Box 4.2 Bringing out the Best in People? Not for Everyone**

Good work means enabling people to use their abilities to the fullest extent possible. One indicator is the degree of autonomy people are allowed in their work. Another is the extent to which people are working below their abilities, with a third of Dutch workers claiming they do not use all their professional talents and skills at work.33 Some also work at a level below that implied by their educational attainment, although this percentage is comparatively low.34

Women's capacities are under-utilized at work. From the age of 35, women in the Netherlands are more likely than men to work at a level lower than is appropriate for their education.35 This is sometimes their own choice as they wish to devote more time to their children and so "choose" a less demanding job. But all too often, women encounter the glass ceiling which prevents them from rising to the top of an organization, or a "sticky foor" which keeps them bogged down in its lower regions.36

People with migration backgrounds often have jobs requiring a standard of education inferior to their actual qualifcations. Statistics Netherlands concludes that the Dutch labour market has an inherent "ethnic sanction": after adjusting for their course of study and the grades they obtained, a person with a migration background needs a higher level of educational attainment than someone of Dutch origin to secure the same job.37

Finally, people with occupational disabilities are less likely than their ablebodied peers to be working at a level below that implied by their educational attainment. In many cases, this is probably because their health problems or disability prevented them from obtaining qualifcations matching their intellectual ability. This group reports more frequently than their able-bodied peers that insuffcient use is being made of their skills and know-how. This is in part due to the lack of workplace adjustments and adaptations, and in part due to prejudice and discrimination.38

## **4.3 Camaraderie at Work**

Compared to workers in other countries, Dutch workers experience a high degree of social support at work, both vertically from managers and horizontally from colleagues. The fgures are higher in Ireland and Norway, but lower in Germany.39

33Poulissen et al. (2017).

34oecd (2017).

35 cbs (2016, January 19).

36Portegijs et al. (2016).

37Falcke et al. (2017).

38Poulissen et al. (2017).

39Eurofound (2017). In 2018, some 96.6% of Dutch workers enjoyed substantial social support from colleagues; 85.6% enjoyed support from managers Houtman et al., 2020.

Social support is not only a buffer against the intensifcation of work; it can reduce symptoms of burnout (see Fig. 4.2), improve occupational well-being, and is necessary for co-operation within the work organization. People who work well with others are the building blocks of social innovation, and the Netherlands values good workplace relationships like no other nation.40 Although this desire for camaraderie is frequently fulflled, the country also has one of the highest scores in Europe for aggressive workplace behaviour.41 We explore this apparent contradiction in more detail below.

## *4.3.1 Aggression at Work*

Workers in the Netherlands are more likely to encounter aggressive workplace behaviour, mostly in verbal form, than their peers in Germany, Belgium and France. It is diffcult to explain. One probable factor is the size of the Dutch service sector, which is particularly prone to aggressive conduct. Across different service subsectors, the rate of violence is higher in the Netherlands than in other countries. The Dutch "direct culture" may also play a role.42

To some extent, it is colleagues and managers who make work a battleground. 16% of Dutch employees experience inappropriate behaviour at work from colleagues and managers, including harassment, bullying, unwanted sexual advances and physical violence.43 People with migration backgrounds, especially the frst generation, who are affected most (one-ffth), also report more discrimination by people they work with or report to.44

Clients, in the broadest sense of the term, are the principal source of workplace aggression: a quarter of employees experience harassment, bullying or unwanted sexual advances from clients.45 The problem is the most severe in the health and social care sector. In the past 3 years, *Algemeen Dagblad*, one of the largest newspapers in the Netherlands by circulation, has reported cases of aggressive behaviour against disability care workers, prison guards, psychiatric care workers, paramedics, pharmacists and medical receptionists. While working with people is intrinsic to the service economy, it demands resilience and strength of character.

In the public sector, the aggression is largely due to increasingly vocal clients. Parents for example expect a great deal of say in their children's schooling; public policy encourages this empowerment. Combined with cuts to services that leave public-sector workers less time and space to do their jobs well, this can lead to

40Conen (2018); see also Conen (2020).

41Houtman et al. (2020).

42Eurofound (2017); see also Houtman et al. (2017).

43Houtman et al. (2017); see also Houtman et al. (2020).

44Hooftman and Houtman (2017).

45Houtman et al. (2017).

problems escalating more quickly and more often.46 The fexibilization of the labour market also fuels aggressive behaviour as clients fnd themselves dealing with a different employee each time they interact with the organization. The resulting frustration is one reason why nine out of ten employees in disability care face aggression – not just from clients, but also from their relatives and friends.47 Research by the Dutch teaching union aob states that "parents are a factor in the workload that should not be underestimated" and that conficts with assertive parents are one of the major causes of teacher burnout.48

Private-sector workers are also experiencing increased pressure and aggression from customers. Again, this is because many occupations have taken on a service dimension.49 Security guards may be confronted by violent criminals, but more often by irritated drivers delayed at checkpoints. Truck drivers can experience road rage and then angry customers when they arrive late at their destination. Broader social changes are penetrating the workplace. When citizens become assertive consumers, in some cases encouraged by government policy, this can suppress human empathy for the person standing in front of them. We are treated everywhere as buyers of products and services, as consumers with a right to be demanding – "the customer is king (or queen)". But this is only possible because there are people working to provide these goods and services. In our current consumer society, we sometimes forget that we are not only consumers but working people.

The pressure empowered citizens and consumers place on workers in healthcare and the service economy can be further increased by digitization and social media. People working via online platforms in the gig economy are subject to the "reputation mechanism": the systemic use of customer reviews to encourage them to perform well. But other organizations, including governments, have begun using such mechanisms for direct review as well. Consumers and patients are often more motivated to write negative reviews than positive ones. The digital culture of constant evaluation can thus reinforce feelings among workers that they are always walking on eggshells and that their colleagues have become competitors. It was largely for this reason that staff at the Dutch department store De Bijenkorf, led by their trade union, resisted the introduction of a rating system for sales personnel.50

## *4.3.2 Camaraderie in the Age of Flexible Work*

Platform-based work can undermine workplace camaraderie. When one's boss is an algorithm and one's colleague a competitor, it is diffcult to build or experience any sense of fellowship. New technologies can also lead to more solo work, for example

46See also Tummers et al. (2016).

47See cnv Zorg and Welzijn (2018).

48Algemene Onderwijsbond (2017).

49 van den Groenendaal et al. (2020).

50 rtl Nieuws (2018, May 23).

security guards who now patrol with handheld computers rather than partners, and order pickers who receive their instructions from portable devices which direct them along the most effcient walking route, leaving them few opportunities to chat with colleagues.51

Temporary work can also hinder bonding in the workplace. The sociologist Richard Sennett in *The Corrosion of Character*52 paints a portrait of a "short-term society" in which contacts are always temporary and feeting. But although it is true that temporary workers, especially agency and on-call personnel,53 receive less support from colleagues and managers than permanent staff, collegial atmospheres can be maintained when everyone is in the same boat, as is often the case in hospitality or cleaning.54 Contact with managers, however, remains problematic; in much precarious work, the actual employer is nowhere to be seen.55 In fexible work, the problem lies primarily in vertical relationships at the workplace (see Chap. 6).

Labour market fexibility has ushered in counter-movements. As noted in the wrr publication *For the Sake of Security*, many self-employed individuals participate in various forms of "work community-light".56 Wanting to be one's own boss is not the same thing as wanting to be alone in the world of work. Freelances meet in coffee bars and shared offces, join mutual aid funds and form groups to help members with work and facilities.57 Sometimes these contacts evolve into a kind of "work organization 3.0" that allows members both independence and basic ties to collectively cover risks.

## **4.4 Differences in Control over Work: Education and Occupation**

When people have little control over their work, this constitutes bad work. Are bad jobs growing in the Netherlands, as Arne Kalleberg observed for the United States?58 We observed earlier that work has been intensifying, especially in terms of time pressure and emotional labour, while workplace autonomy is declining. While *everyone* seems to have a little less control over work, there are important differences between workers, particularly according to their educational attainment and occupation.

51See the professional portraits in van den Groenendaal et al. (2020).

52Sennett (1986).

53Houtman et al. (2020).

54Camaraderie can also emerge in response to unfair treatment by the employer (Kremer, 2017).

55 van der Gaag (2018).

56 van der Meer (2017).

57One example is Zorg&Co. See van der Meer (2017).

58Kalleberg (2011).

At the bottom end of the labour market, work is generally unchallenging and workplace autonomy is in short supply. Especially young people, people with nonwestern migration backgrounds and people with less formal education are more likely now than in the past to have routine, boring jobs with little autonomy.59 Figs. 4.1 and 4.3 show the decline in intellectually challenging work. Autonomy at work is lowest among high school graduates and has also declined the most for this group, although it has declined for workers with post-secondary education as well. While jobs have been created at the lower end of the market, these are mainly bad jobs offering little in the way of challenge.

There are also specifc occupations in which control over work has eroded. Figure 4.5 shows the "burden of work" (both the quantitative and qualitative

Aggregate of heavy workload and time pressure, emotional and mental workload, overwork, conflicts

**Fig. 4.5** Burden of work and resources in various occupations, 2014–2018 (ages 15–74) Source: Houtman et al., 2020

59Smulders and van den Bossche (2017).

intensifcation of work) on the x-axis and the resources available to deal with this burden (social support, autonomy) on the y-axis. The professions under greatest pressure are in the bottom-right corner: primary and secondary-school teachers, nurses and truck drivers. While care workers for the elderly, printers, loaders/ unloaders, and bus and train drivers are not far behind, they enjoy somewhat more social support and/or autonomy. These are precisely the occupations that have been demanding better conditions in recent years, sometimes through industrial action. In the top-right corner are professionals such as architects and managers who also work intensively, facing tight deadlines and complex situations. But they generally have more resources at their disposal, which allow them to better cope with the increasing demands.

Strikingly, the occupations in which workers have the least control are mainly in the public and semi-public sectors. The 2018 annual review of working conditions by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientifc Research found healthcare and education (alongside hospitality) to be the sectors where workers most often face heightened demands alongside limited autonomy. Conditions have also been deteriorating over the previous decade.60

## **4.5 Who Is Responsible for Control over Work?**

However helpful training courses, stress tests and self-help books may be – and however much we may ultimately be racing against ourselves – control over work is not an individual problem but one that suffuses the modern work organization. We should be focusing not only on how workers handle stress, but on how to minimize risks in the frst place. First and foremost, it is up to companies and institutions to create healthier work organizations. But to date, improvements have been lacklustre. Who or what is holding back progress?

The Netherlands, like other corporatist European countries, has a highly developed system of social dialogue that makes extensive use of legally binding collective labour agreements that cover about 80% of all employees. Many actors participate in this system, including the government; employers' organizations and trade unions (the government's "social partners"); and working people alongside their professional associations. We discuss each in turn below.

## *4.5.1 Government*

The government's frst pillar, the Working Conditions Act, has since 1989 covered the quality of work (Section 3, Well-Being at Work). Initially focused on extending learning opportunities and reducing stress-related risks, measures were added in

60 tno (2019).

1999 to prevent workplace bullying and discrimination. These are just a few of the provisions in the Act's 44 sections, most of which cover the physical aspects of work (hazardous substances, heavy lifting and so on).61 The Working Conditions Act holds employers responsible for the quality of work and obliges them to conduct risk assessments. The question is whether legislation is paying adequate attention to the non-physical aspects of work that also undermine workplace well-being.62

While the Social Affairs and Employment Inspectorate is responsible for ensuring compliance with working conditions legislation, it lacks the human and fnancial resources needed for comprehensive enforcement. Its inspections reveal that many frms do not even undertake the mandatory risk assessments. Overall, the inspectorate concludes, the business community is falling short of its legal obligations.63 Although the inspectorate's remit includes workloads, workplace aggression and discrimination, it rarely checks – certainly not in actual workplaces. Inspections still tend to focus on the physical aspects of work.64 While work today is more likely to entail psychosocial risks, the law and what enforcement there is focus on their *detection* rather than on how the work organization can be improved to bring out the best in people.65

The government's second pillar consists of legislation governing sick leave and reintegration in the workplace. Employers are obliged under the threat of fnes to take care of staff on sick leave. This system, unique to the Netherlands, has successfully reduced absenteeism. The guidance provided by occupational physicians, however, is directed mainly at individuals, not the work organization, and it remains questionable whether the medicalizing of individual employees is the right approach. Improving the design of companies and institutions cannot be left to doctors alone; it sometimes requires more structural changes for which labour or organizational experts are needed.

The government's third pillar is the law on staff councils. These bodies are highly developed in the Netherlands and allow employees to infuence the quality of their work through legally binding rights of advice and consent. Not all work

61Regarding "psychosocial" and other forms of mental or emotional pressure, Section 3.2 of the 1999 Working Conditions Act states: "The employer shall operate a policy aimed at preventing employment-related psychosocial pressure, or limiting it if prevention is not possible, as part of the general working conditions policy."

62Frank Pot argues that more effort should be made to publicize Section 3 of the Working Conditions Act, where it "calls for work to be adapted to the employees' individual characteristics and for monotonous work and activities that need to be carried out at a particular speed to be avoided or limited" (Pot, 2019b).

63 Inspectie szw (2019).

64As an exception, 81 organizations were inspected between 1 November 2015 and 1 March 2016 to see whether employers had developed policies to manage work pressure; 80% were found not to have done this systematically enough (Inspectorate szw, 2016).

65The oecd cites the Working Environment Act in Denmark as an example of good practice (oecd, 2018a: 182).

organizations are required by law to implement this form of employee participation; many small frms are exempt, while workers in the platform economy, self-employed individuals and fexible temporary staff generally fall outside of its remit.66 Workers with insecure fexible jobs rarely take part in decision-making, are less familiar with this form of participation and are not strong enough to enforce changes.67 The larger the proportion of temporary personnel on a company's books, the less likely it is to have a staff council.68

## *4.5.2 Social Partners and Professional Associations*

Employees can exert infuence to improve their control over work.69 After all, who is better placed to do so? The question is whether employees are suffciently powerful and whether existing forms of staff representation focus enough on the quality of work. Compared to especially the Scandinavian countries and France, the Netherlands has low trade-union membership; unions generally lack meaningful presence in individual workplaces. At the national level, trade-unions advise the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (ser) and campaign to shape Dutch and European regulations. The ser70 is an advisory body comprising representatives of trade unions and employers' organizations as well as independent experts, one of the main platforms for social dialogue in the Dutch system of broad consultation known as the "polder model". In its 2016 report *People and Technology*, the ser advocated combining technological and social innovation.71

Collective labour agreements provide further opportunities for improving the quality of work. Although discussion about implementation has yet to begin, two agreements recently concluded in the metals sector contain provisions to promote workplace "social innovation". Many industries publish working conditions catalogues specifying occupational health, safety and well-being requirements tailored to their particular contexts, along with recommendations and examples of best practice.72 Renewing their traditional interest in their members' professional

66Heidsma and Zaal (2019).

67 van der Gaag (2018).

68Tros et al. (2019).

69 "Workers' participation is all the more necessary as the advent of artifcial intelligence is expected to bring new challenges to workplaces" (Ponce Del Castillo, 2017).

70 https://www.ser.nl/en/SER/About-the-SER/-/media/544A7D818CA04A2FA1DFCCE 9E0F09057.ashx

71 ser (2016b).

72Working conditions catalogues are available in the meat, poultry, fsh processing, agricultural, parks and gardens, cleaning, window-cleaning, construction and infrastructure sectors, among others. They advocate alternating or rotating tasks and ergonomic improvements. The catalogues do not question the nature of the work itself, although they do occasionally refer to the Working Conditions Act – specifcally Section 3.1d, which calls for the avoidance of monotonous work (Pot, 2018a).

development would allow unions to more effectively participate in the debate on how technology can improve the quality of work and workplace well-being.73

While professional associations – for example v&vn, representing nurses and social care workers in the Netherlands – often emphasize professional development and workplace autonomy, they are not always large enough or suffciently resourced to press their demands home within individual companies and institutions.74

## *4.5.3 Workers*

Effective staff representation improves the quality of work and protects workers from occupational stress.75 There are three levels at which workers can strengthen their positions within organizations: on the shopfoor, in the staff council and in the boardroom. Particularly the system of staff councils could be better exploited to improve the quality of work. Companies with staff councils generally have working climates where employees can take initiative.76 Staff councils can facilitate consultation and teamwork on the shopfoor; the more infuence employees have over the organization of their own work, the more effectively their representative bodies operate.77 But it remains unclear to what extent staff councils are able to infuence decision-making. While they already have a broad statutory remit, they may – judging by their past track record78 – be hard pressed to tackle broader issues such as emotional stress or how technology is used in the workplace.

Employees do not always feel represented by existing structures. Organizations have thus begun experimenting with more pro-active forms of participation alongside, instead of, or within staff councils.79 Examples include the banking group abn amro's participant pool and Haarlem City Council's theme groups that draw many more employees than only staff council members into work-related discussions.

How far can workers infuence corporate governance? From his research on how employee participation has affected the market value of 700 European companies in the period 2006–2008, Robert Kleinknecht80 concludes that employee participation

73Crouch (2018).

74v&vn, the Dutch professional association for nurses and social care workers, is very active and has more than 100,000 members. It addresses workload, education, autonomy and professional pride.

75 etui (2019); Eurofound (2013).

76Smulders and Pot (2016).

77Tros et al. (2019); Smulders and Pot (2016).

78Pot (2019b).

79Tros et al. (2019).

80Kleinknecht (2018).

heightens managers' awareness of long-term goals. In the Netherlands, the debate thus far has focused mainly on gender balance in governance (see the ser advisory report *Diversity in the Boardroom: Time to Accelerate*).81 Elsewhere, French President Emanuel Macron, former uk Prime Minister Theresa May and former us presidential candidate Elisabeth Warren have advanced proposals to reserve more places on company boards for staff or trade union representatives.82 In the Netherlands, one suggestion is for a nurse to sit on the board of every healthcare institution83 – an idea that has long been on the agenda in the us. 84

Finally, it is possible to create work organizations in which the personnel take charge from the outset. Although workers' co-operatives are not as common in the Netherlands as they are in Italy or Spain, interest is growing: groups of the selfemployed have begun pooling their resources while new initiatives are emerging in the platform economy (see Box 4.3). Some companies have introduced initiatives combining proft-sharing and representation.85 More recently, social enterprises with a different approach to doing business than traditional frms are emerging,86 although they may encounter legal and regulatory obstacles from the requirement to establish staff councils87 to the ban on employees who are also claiming benefts from sharing in the profts. To strengthen control over work, initiatives to democratize work must be supported.

The three structural developments at the heart of this report – the automation, fexibilization and intensifcation of labour – can all undermine control over work. To ensure that this does not happen, different actors need to play their part.

81 ser (2019a).

82Kowalsky (2019).

83 In 2018, mps Corinne Ellemeet and Sophie Hermans tabled a parliamentary motion calling for all healthcare institutions to appoint a "chief nursing offcer" to the board. They believe that nurses, with their wealth of knowledge and experience, should be listened to.

84Graystone (2019).

85See, for example, Kremer, M. (Kremer, 2015, February 2).

86See also the wrr exploratory study of philanthropy (de Goede et al., 2019) which proposes studying the desirability of a new statute for social enterprises.

87The ser can grant exemptions from this requirement, but rarely does (Tros et al., 2019).

#### **Box 4.3 Workers' Co-Operatives**

Co-operatives enable self-employed individuals and platform workers to enter into collective agreements about rates and other matters. A platform cooperative is owned and managed by the platform's users. Examples include Stocksy, a website operated by a group of photographers, and Green Taxi, formed by 800 taxi drivers in Denver, Colorado. Smart, originally founded in Belgium, claims to represent 85,000 freelances, many of them artists and performers. Co-operatives have effectively functioned as trade unions when new platforms appear on the market, forcing for instance food-delivery services Deliveroo and Take Eat Easy to accept collective agreements covering their members.88

There are businesses where the staff are in charge in other industries as well. *Schoongewoon*, founded in 2012, is a group of ten local workers' cooperatives in the cleaning sector. Everyone participates in the frm's decisionmaking and shares in its profts; all say they prefer this work to their previous job – not because their wages are higher (they are not) but because they feel that they are their own boss, that there is mutual trust and everyone helps each other.89 In the home care sector, the *Helpgewoon* co-operative is organized along similar lines.

## **4.6 Conclusion: Control Over Work Requires More Autonomy and Camaraderie**

Neutral Positive Negative

Dutch workers are constantly trying to adapt to the changing and growing demands of their jobs, which are leaving them with more to do and less time to do it. Although the Netherlands, on aggregate, scores well in "control over work", it does not do so

88Arets (2019, February 25).

89Stavenuiter and Oostrik (2017).

consistently. Aggression in workplaces is increasing while almost half of all workers experience limited and declining autonomy. While new technologies and fexible contracts are part of the story, the government itself is part of the problem when public-sector professionals are suffering the brunt of New Public Management and the organized mistrust it entails. With little autonomy at work, people are less able to cope with its intensifcation. All in all, it is a recipe for burnout and absenteeism.

Lack of control over work is not an individual problem that can be solved through stress tests and self-help books. It concerns work organizations and, more broadly, society. How can we ensure that companies and institutions take responsibility for the quality of work they provide as they make strategic decisions about the automation, fexibilization and intensifcation of labour? After all, the prime responsibility for the quality of jobs and workers' ability to exercise meaningful control over their work rests with management. Much remains to be done, not least by employers' organizations and trade unions; workers also need greater infuence over their organizations (see recommendations in Chap. 8).

It is crucial that people have control over their work – for their own health and well-being as well as for the functioning of the work organization. For the same reasons, workers need to be able to put boundaries around their work so that they may exercise control over the rest of their lives. That is the subject of the next chapter.

#### **A Day at Work: The IT Worker**

"Data is the new gold", says IT worker Gerco, "and I help mine that gold." Gerco was hired on a freelance basis by the German energy company Innogy, the parent company of Essent – a leading supplier of gas and electricity to the Dutch market. Innogy wants to make the most of its data on its 2.5 million customers in the Netherlands, such as their energy consumption and their responses to special offers. Gerco is part of a "Big Data Team" of 20 specialists organizing and analysing this material, converting it into behavioural predictions.

Aged 48, Gerco is self-employed and currently engaged by several clients, mostly on long-term projects. He works for Innogy about three days a week, partly at home and partly at its offces in Den Bosch. Today there is a short sub-team meeting at 9:30 am to identify problems and defne new tasks. Because of its international composition, the team works in English. After the meeting, Gerco takes a seat at one of the workstations in the "fexible space" where the Big Data Team has gathered. He is working on a program for an improved data library. "Programming is not so creative", he explains. "It's mainly making use of solutions other people have already come up with. Programmers are constantly googling." He types in a question, goes through the search results and fnds a possible answer. Then he cuts and pastes, polishes, does a test and fnds that it works. A big laugh: "We are very pleased with Google."

The self-managing team works in "three-week sprints", each with new goals. From these are derived specifc tasks, which are delineated and allocated through mutual agreement. At 11 am there is a stand-up meeting in a cramped, glass-walled conference room to mark the end of the current sprint. Against the back wall is a 3×2-metre board with the project timetable, covered with stickers and Post-It notes. The team members report briefy on their progress and discuss successes, problems, solutions and new estimates. Post-Its are moved and new ones added. The conclusion: they are still on schedule. Everyone returns to their own computer.

Shortly after noon, someone calls out something about lunchtime. Gerco drags himself away from his screen. It is rare for anybody to work through lunch with just a sandwich at their computer. In the canteen, six members of his team sit together at a table. 45 min later, everyone is back in the offce. Gerco continues to work on his program. Now that he has found the right route, he can set about perfecting it.

Information technology is developing rapidly. Gerco keeps up to date by reading and talking with colleagues, but above all by doing. He had to learn the trade largely on the job – his degree is in Mechanical Engineering, not IT. His criticism of many training courses and companies is that they tie employees down to a specialist domain, say Java, when broad knowledge is essential to keep up. "As a freelance, I'm in on a wide range of projects. You learn from that."

Becoming self-employed was a deliberate choice for Gerco. He has joined 4Synergy, a group of 45 freelance IT specialists who work together to acquire and share knowledge. He is saving for a rainy day and is insured against illness through a mutual aid fund. His rate varies between €700 and €1200 gross per day, depending on the type of assignment.

At about 2 pm, Gerco has an appointment with a colleague from Innogy. The Big Data Team needs permission to link its cloud platform to the frm's data fles. This is a major information security issue. The two men sit together in a small interview room, each behind his own laptop. The jargon fies: "gateway", "aws management console", "user landing". The perfect solution cannot be achieved at the moment, but Gerco says that the alternative they have found is more than adequate: it sounds an alarm if anyone tries to break in. But his colleague doubts this will satisfy his superiors. Gerco is not happy. Co-ordination with the company often leads to delays, he sighs.

He returns to his computer. Stress is not a problem for Gerco. Nor does he have the idea that companies are racking up their demands or expecting orders to be completed faster. It is rare for him to work in the evening or on weekends.

Gerco notes that technology is taking over more and more work, including that of people in IT. "The hardware specialists, especially in non-graduate positions, are losing their jobs. For example, because servers are being replaced by the cloud." Which does not mean that he, as a cloud specialist, is sitting pretty. "In ten years' time that could be replaced by artifcial intelligence." So? "So I have to make sure I stay up to date and in demand. How? By continuing to work. Beyond that, you can't plan things."

It is 5 pm. Gerco fnishes his program and then goes home.

*The number of IT workers in the Netherlands continues to grow; at the beginning of 2019 there were 395,000 of them, 85% of them men. They are relatively highly educated: 62% have a university degree, 22% a post-secondary vocational qualifcation. The number with permanent contracts is declining. In 2017, they accounted for 73% of the profession, while 15% were on fexible contracts and 16% were self-employed. According to a 2014 survey of IT professionals by the technology website Tweakers, almost 60% have a gross income of between €2000 and €4000 per month. The average (modal) income in the Netherlands in 2020 will be just over €2800 per month, excluding holiday pay. Freelance IT workers are more likely than employees to earn less than €2000, but also more likely to earn more than €4000.*

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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# **Chapter 5 Control in Life**

The Dutch value clear boundaries around their work. However much they may be committed to their professions and occupations, they want to live a life and to be able to look after young children and elderly parents. It is thus hardly surprising that control over one's working hours has become a key policy issue in recent decades.1 This has largely been driven by women moving en masse into the paid labour market, although working men certainly want more control over their lives as well. One in ten workers in the Netherlands now say that their working and private lives are out of balance.2 As deadlines pile up at work, so too does the washing up at home; as a result, people sometimes feel inadequate on both fronts.3 Some people – especially the highly educated, women and parents – feel perpetually rushed.4

Eurofound5 observes that it is relatively easy for people in the Netherlands to set limits on their work and to combine work with private life. This is largely due to the country' s part-time work culture. Dutch women entered the workforce en masse only in the late 1990s, at about the same time as women in Spain and Ireland. The inroads women have made since then are largely due to the part-time economy, with shorter hours widely accepted even in the middle and upper segments of the labour market.6 But it is not only women who fnd it easier to enter paid work; the part-time culture also benefts other groups such as people with occupational disabilities (Box 5.2).

1The clearest changes concern the importance of good working hours (45% in 1990, 60% in 2018) and good holiday arrangements (36% in 1990, 45% in 2018) (Conen, 2020).

2Houtman et al. (2020).

3Houtman et al. (2017).

4Overall, 36% of workers sometimes feel rushed, 54% that they are sometimes too busy, and 39% that they are failing to some extent. Highly educated persons, women and parents more often express such sentiments (Roeters, 2018).

5Eurofound (2017).

6Visser (2002).

M. Kremer et al., *Better Work*, Research for Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78682-3\_5

The question remains whether this has not created what economist Janneke Plantenga calls the "part-time trap".7 Public provisions in the Netherlands, from school hours to pre-school childcare, tend to be geared to part-time work which has become the norm, in policy as well as in practice. As a result, many workers do not truly choose the hours they work. The part-time culture has also impeded progress in areas such as comprehensive childcare and paid leave.

This chapter focuses on part-time work as well as the other ingredients necessary to improve control in life including paid leave, good childcare, care for the elderly and workers' ability to determine their own working hours. How are new technologies, fexible contracts and the intensifcation of work affecting people's control in life?

## **5.1 Part-Time Work, or Looking After Number One**

The work-life balance enjoyed by most people in the Netherlands can be attributed to the part-time economy, more specifcally to the part-time economy for women. Three-quarters of working women are employed part-time (Fig. 5.1); their average working week has now risen to 28 h, which is no longer low by European standards. Twenty-two percent of working men also work part-time, a level unique in Europe. Overall, men work an average of 39 h a week (Fig. 5.2).8

The Care and Work Act, introduced in 2006, allows people to adjust their own working hours, providing what is effectively a right to work part-time. The possibilities were further expanded by the Flexible Working Act in 2016. This means that the Netherlands, together with the uk, now has the most comprehensive legislation for part-time work.9 By law, workers enjoy substantial autonomy to determine for themselves where and what hours they work. Combined with the Dutch part-time economy, the law ensures that people have more time for their families, voluntary work and other activities.

Does the lack of affordable childcare force especially women to work part-time? The answer, largely, is "no": part-time work is what most women prefer. It is their wish, primarily because it allows them to spend more time with their children. Despite this, the Netherlands Institute for Social Research has calculated that the average female working week would be 2.3 h longer if all women were able to work the amount they preferred.10 Moreover, 13% of women – and 7% of men – explicitly state that they want to work more hours.11 Whereas public policy in recent decades

7Dohmen (2017, October 20).

8Portegijs and van den Brakel (2018).

9oecd (2019b).

10Portegijs et al. (2016).

11Portegijs and van den Brakel (2018). According to Statistics Netherlands, 662,000 people want to work fewer hours, notable among them the self-employed. In the frst quarter of 2019, 766,000 people wanted to work more hours, although not all were immediately available (www.opendata. cbs.nl).

**Fig. 5.1** Proportion of women in part-time work in the Netherlands and the rest of the European Union, 2017 Source: scp

**Fig. 5.2** Proportion of men in part-time work in the Netherlands and the rest of the European Union, 2017 Source: scp

has focused on opportunities to work less, perhaps more attention is now warranted for possibilities to work more. While part-time work as a choice is a hallmark of good work, this choice is inevitably shaped by prevailing social, economic and institutional conditions. We examine the most important of these below.

## *5.1.1 Childcare*

Would people in the Netherlands work longer hours if childcare was less expensive and of better quality? The provision of public care for young children – professional childminding, crèches, kindergartens, nursery schools – is seen primarily as a surrogate for parental care (the term kinder*opvang* implies a "relief" or "stand-by" service). The main aim of childcare in the Netherlands has always been to support women's participation in the workforce – unlike in Scandinavia, where the child's social, emotional and cognitive development is paramount.12 The quality of Dutch childcare has long worried pedagogues.13 Most workers in the sector only have modest qualifcations,14 and it is only quite recently that Dutch public childcare has been assessed as "satisfactory" to "good".15 Pedagogues claim that compared to other countries, the quality of Dutch childcare is only "average".16

Dutch parents often fnd the costs of childcare prohibitive, and they are right: only in the uk do parents spend more of their income on childcare. A couple with one full-time and one part-time earner can easily fnd themselves spending a ffth of their earnings on childcare, even if it is only for a few days a week.17 While parents generally consider the quality of the care good, they are critical of the high staff turnover – a product, in part, of labour market fexibilization.18 Dutch parents have low expectations.19 Because of the part-time economy, children only attend nursery a few days a week; "safe" and "fun" are thus good enough. If childcare focused more on the child's educational development, parents might make more use of it, allowing them more time to work.

12See also wrr (2013a).

13Vermeer and Groeneveld (2017).

14The *National Childcare Quality Monitor* concludes: "The provision of professionalization activities is middling on average, with little frequent substantive educational consultation with colleagues or fellow childcare workers and managers" (Slot et al., 2017: 12).

15Slot et al. (2017).

16Fukkink (ed.). (2017).

17oecd (2016b); see also oecd (2019b). Dutch government spending is also relatively low; see also McKinsey Global Institute (2018).

18Roeters and Bucx (2018).

19Dohmen (2017, October 20).

#### **Box 5.1 Childcare in Northern Europe**

Pre-school in Scandinavia has historically focused on children's social and cognitive development, and Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark consistently top international tables for the quality of childcare. The idea is that – certainly from the age of two – children are better off attending nursery than staying at home. In Denmark, all children older than 6 months are entitled to at least 20 h of public childcare a week, even if their parents do not go out to work.20 In line with this thinking, higher professional demands are placed on staff in the sector, who usually have vocational degrees. In contrast, their Dutch counterparts are more likely to have post-secondary qualifcations at best, while many are on temporary contracts.

## *5.1.2 Care for the Elderly*

Would people in the Netherlands work longer hours if care for the elderly were better organized? In previous generations, women were stay-at-home mothers and available to look after elderly relatives if need be. Now that most members of both sexes are working outside the home, more and more people are combining paid work and informal care-giving – one in three women and one in fve men, 2 million people in all. This number will only continue to rise with the aging of the population and people staying in work for longer.21 So long as their care-giving only consists of basic tasks and errands that are not too time-consuming, most working informal care-givers manage to cope. But the heavier the burden becomes – 8 h or more a week – the more likely some will stop working altogether and many more will work fewer hours or take sick leave.22 Workers with heavy informal care responsibilities experience a great deal of time pressure and are less satisfed with their lives.23

Compared to most other European countries, the Netherlands spends large sums on long-term care for the elderly. A signifcant percentage of those aged 75 and over live in residential nursing facilities or receive professional care in their own homes.24 While the policy aim is for people to continue living independently for as long as possible, the Dutch social care system is not organized to support informal caregivers; it focuses on the elderly themselves, not on their working sons or daughters. What assistance informal care-givers receive comes from local government in the form of information, emotional support and at times short-term respite care – none of which does much to keep the informal care-giver in work.

20Kremer (2007); Rostgaard (2014).

21 de Boer et al. (2019).

22Among those combining work with intensive informal care-giving, 17% started working less and 7% gave up work altogether (Josten & de Boer, 2015).

23 de Boer et al. (2019).

24Spasova et al. (2018).

Structural facilities to help working informal care-givers such as day-care centres and hospital-based services have been phased out. Referring to what they call the "participation society", recent Dutch governments have called on people to take greater responsibility for care and to make less use of facilities provided by the welfare state. For the foreseeable future, the care demands placed on families are more likely to increase than decrease.25

## *5.1.3 Fair Sharing*

Do people work more if their partner does more at home? The policy ideal in the Netherlands has long been the "fair sharing" of both paid and unpaid work. But although the Dutch have been European leaders in talking about men's responsibilities26 and shared caring is the stated ideal of much of the population,27 things differ in practice. Women usually reduce their working hours once children are born while men work more. In only 18% of households with children do both partners work equal hours. While Dutch men have begun caring more for their children than men in most other European countries except in Scandinavia, Dutch women more frequently remain responsible for household tasks and especially family organization. The differences are most apparent in informal care-giving, where 17% of working women and 10% of working men look after sick or needy elderly relatives, partners or children.28

## *5.1.4 Good Work*

If one chooses for it, working part-time can protect workers from the intensifcation of work.29 But would part-time employees work longer hours if they had better jobs? Women tend to have less autonomy at work and are more likely to be working on a temporary or on-call basis and in sectors with high workloads such as primary education and healthcare. Some jobs are so emotionally stressful that people eschew full-time positions. In primary education, a leading reason to prefer part-time appointments is that teaching is "too demanding for a full-time job".30

Sometimes only part-time work is available, for instance in home care, afterschool childcare and cleaning. Entry-level jobs for young women leaving school or college are often part-time,31 while cleaning often also employs men and ethnic

25Bredewold et al. (2018).

26See, for example, Commissie Toekomstscenario's Herverdeling Onbetaalde Arbeid (1995).

27Portegijs et al. (2016).

28Portegijs et al. (2016).

29Piasna (2018).

30Arbeidsmarktplatform PO (2019).

31Merens and Bucx (2018).

minorities who must hold several part-time jobs to make ends meet. Part-time work has become the norm in some occupations and sectors, not because it helps workers gain control in life but because it is cheaper for employers.

While the Flexible Working Act sets the standard and encourages the practice of part-time employment,32 it is less well-known that this statute provides opportunities for both reducing and increasing working hours, for example by working from home. Legal proceedings to enforce this right are less common than cases seeking fewer hours and are also less likely to succeed as employers can give many reasons for opposing such requests.33 Employees are often unaware that they can demand more offcial hours as an alternative to structural overtime. From the perspective of good work, being able to work more, if one wishes, is as important as the right to work less.

The quality of work can be a signifcant factor encouraging people to work fewer hours. It is striking that 70% of the lower skilled labour force in the Netherlands, male and female, have part-time jobs – a rate unsurpassed anywhere else in Europe.34 Women in this group are less likely than other women to be working at all. When they do, they have on average the shortest working weeks: 22 h, compared with 25 h for women with post-secondary qualifcations and 28 h for university graduates.35 One reason, it seems, is that many women with lower educational attainment have "traditional" views of family life, preferring to spend a lot of time with their children; their husbands are less active in the household than other men. But there is also the fact that the work they do, or could do, is not very attractive. With better jobs, they might want to work longer hours.

In short, part-time work can help people gain control in life – but only if it is a genuine choice, not something forced on people because childcare is too expensive or poor in quality, because their jobs are too draining to do all day, every day, or because there are no full-time positions on offer.36

Although part-time employment allows people to more easily draw boundaries around their working lives, it comes at a price. Ultimately there is a price for society as well. The Dutch part-time economy is among the main reasons why women are less likely to be in good jobs and senior positions, and more likely to be paid less, to have lower pensions, to receive less compensation when they become incapacitated

32Kamerstukken ii, 2010/2011, 32 889, No. 3.

33Burri (2020).

34oecd (2019b).

35Portegijs et al. (2016).

36The *Emancipation Monitor* (Portegijs & van den Brakel, 2018) maintained by the Netherlands Institute for Social Research reports that nearly eight out of ten women working part-time would, subject to certain conditions, like to work more hours. One in three cite inadequate household income as their motivation. Similar numbers would work more hours if they could better combine it with their personal lives, for example through more suitable hours, working from home and/or shorter commutes. Affordable quality childcare would make a difference for one in six mothers; one in fve informal care-givers say they will work more once their help is no longer needed.

#### **Box 5.2 Part-Time Employment as an Opportunity to Work**

Part-time employment provides opportunities for people with diffculties adapting to the demands and rhythms of paid work, or who need a stepping stone to full-time employment. They include people who wish to start working again after serious illness, the long-term unemployed and people with occupational disabilities. According to the oecd, it is because of the part-time economy that people with serious mental health issues in the Netherlands are more likely to be working than in other countries.37 But in most cases, these people would like to be working longer hours to be able to make a decent living.38

or unemployed, and to be, overall, less fnancially independent.39 Only 60% of women (compared to 79% of men) have incomes that are at least 70% of the net full-time minimum wage.40 This means that they have less fnancial bargaining power and run greater risks if their home situation changes due to separation or divorce. The Dutch solution to provide work-life balance thus has a price for both individuals and society.

## **5.2 Paid Leave**

Workers in the Netherlands do not receive fnancial compensation for providing informal care. If parents choose to work part-time to look after the children, they bear the costs in lost income. Things are different in Scandinavia and Germany, where the dilemma of combining care with work has been solved through *paid* care leave, which can sometimes be taken on a part-time basis. The right to paid leave applies to both parents; sometimes it is subject to a "use it or lose it" clause to ensure that fathers take advantage of the provision to strengthen their bonds with their children and so that women do not fall further behind in the labour market.41 In contrast, the Netherlands only has parental leave for new mothers and, as of 1 July 2020, 5 days of paid partner leave, plus the option of taking up to 26 weeks of parental leave unpaid.

37oecd (2015a).

38Schaafsma et al. (2015).

39Burri (2020).

40Portegijs and van den Brakel (2018). Persons in the Netherlands are considered economically independent if their individual net income from employment and/or self-employment equals or exceeds the threshold for individual minimum income. The threshold is currently set at 70% of the statutory net minimum wage, an amount equal to the net subsistence beneft payable to a single person.

41oecd (2019b).

**Fig. 5.3** Overall parental leave entitlement in months, eu countries, 2017 Source: Blum et al., 2018

Figure 5.3 shows that the Netherlands lags behind much of Europe in its parental leave arrangements. Germany, for instance, provides a total of 14 months of parental leave on a state-funded beneft,42 which parents can divide between themselves. In Sweden the combined paid leave period for both parents is 16 months; the government pays a basic allowance, supplemented by employers. To comply with eu policy, the Netherlands is now revisiting its policies on parental leave. From 2022, all parents will continue to receive half their wages for the frst nine weeks they take off (out of a total leave entitlement of 26 weeks) during the child's frst year of life – a still limited arrangement compared to many other European countries.43

The idea behind paid parental leave is that by giving both parents time and money to look after their new child, they divide care duties equally and both remain active in the labour market. The structure of the arrangement is crucial; it needs to include clauses ensuring that both partners actually take time off and that they are adequately compensated when they do so. As for its duration, the leave should be neither too short nor too long, so parents do not lose touch with the world of work. Eight to twelve months per person is probably a sensible period.44

Leave arrangements for informal care-giving are even less developed than for new parents. Here the Netherlands is more in line with the rest of Europe. The Dutch system includes rights to emergency leave, short-term care leave (on 70% of

42This is about €1800 per month.

43See also oecd (2019b).

44Akgunduz and Plantenga (2013).

salary) and long-term unpaid leave (approximately 6 weeks a year). But only one in ten informal care-givers make use of the paid leave they are entitled to, while many more use their vacation days or report sick in order to fulfl their care responsibilities.45 Apparently, the almost unpaid arrangements available to them do not meet their needs. Few collective labour agreements include provisions for informal care, although there has been slightly more recognition in recent years of the "combined pressure" of work and care.46

The growing group of fexible workers rarely claim paid leave.  A temporary employee has only limited rights, while having intensive care duties at home would seem unlikely to help them secure a permanent contract.47 Plantenga concludes: "A self-employed worker with a sick partner or a single parent with a temporary contract and an unwell child see the hard face of the current social-care infrastructure."48 In the fexible, part-time Dutch economy, parents and informal care-givers bear the costs of lost income.

It is not inconceivable that looking after young children, elderly parents and sick partners will eventually become the privilege of the happy few. But for single parents with limited skills or low-earning or sick partners, choosing to work fewer hours is not always a viable option. The National Institute for Family Finance Information calculates that a person with an average income who works one day less a week to care for a sick father living elsewhere in the country will easily be €245 out of pocket each month. Particularly if workers must reduce their hours to care for a sick partner who depends on benefts, there is a genuine risk that they will descend into poverty.49 While people with good jobs may have enough of a fnancial cushion to move into part-time work, especially if it is only temporary, what about the shop assistant with a sick father or partner? Such people often lack control or even infuence over their working hours.50 More than a third of working informal care-givers have no say at all over their working hours; more than one in fve are rarely or never able to take time off.51 Having the time and money needed to provide care could well become a new issue of distributive justice.

Unpaid care is already apportioned unevenly. More and more women are fulflling informal care responsibilities in their "spare" time. Much of this labour – as well as voluntary care work in home care and hospitals – falls on people already working in the social and healthcare sector, one in four of whom provide some form of

45 de Boer et al. (2019).

46Heeger and Koopmans (2018).

47The self-employed in the Netherlands are entitled to 16 weeks of maternity leave, during which they receive the Maternity Beneft for the Self-Employed.

48Plantenga (2017): 271.

49Heeger and Koopmans (2018). The National Institute for Family Finance Information has calculated that informal care-givers can lose €1100 per month (Nibud, 2014).

50See also de Klerk et al. (2017).

51 de Boer et al. (2019).

unpaid care on top of their paid work.52 The burden of care, both paid and unpaid, thus disproportionately falls on a specifc group of workers.

#### **Box 5.3 Do the Dutch Really Work So Little?**

It is often claimed that the Dutch work less than anyone else in Europe. While this is true, the differences are not as great as many people think. The average Dutch person now works 29 h a week, the same as the average Belgian and only an hour less than the average Dane.53 While the average Dutch worker in the 1960s logged about 1800 h per year, by 1990 this had declined to around 1400 h per year, a number which has since remained relatively stable. But collectively, the Dutch are working more than ever before (Fig. 5.4). This is because participation in the labour market, especially by women, has risen since the 1990s to a level comparable to that in the Scandinavian countries54. Many working people thus also run households, take care of children and help out when loved ones are ill.

52 de Klerk et al. (2017).

53 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4187653/9699107/weekly+paid+hours+2016. The European average is 33. In Denmark it is 30. The gap between the Netherlands and other European countries is narrowing.

54 In 2017, some 72.9% of women aged 15-64 who were not studying were working. The fgure for men was 84.8% (Portegijs & van den Brakel, 2018).

Paid work need not double the load for people with care responsibilities at home. Workplace fexibility and support from colleagues and managers may shield them from the strain. Those who have a good day at work can return home ready to take on the challenges of looking after a sick partner or a disabled child. Good jobs that give workers space for care-giving make unpaid care work possible.

## **5.3 Control Over Working Hours**

While part-time work, paid leave, childcare and home care services all have the potential to give working people greater control in life, people also need some control over where and when they work.55 Above all, this means fexibility *for* the worker, not *by* the worker. About half of all working people in the Netherlands say they can largely determine their own hours; only workers in Denmark, Sweden and Norway fare better.56 The other half, however, have no control over their hours. For them, requesting time off to look after a sick child or an evening shift to take an elderly parent to the hospital during the day can be problematic. Control over one's working hours is also unevenly distributed, primarily along the axis of educational attainment.57

Especially insecure temporary workers lack control over their working hours, a real problem for the 550,000 casual and on-call workers (see Chaps. 1 and 3) overrepresented in the hospitality, cleaning, supermarket and healthcare sectors.58 In theory, these workers can refuse shifts; in practice, they fear that they are replaceable and will no longer be called.59 Especially in the above-mentioned sectors, employers roster their staff to eliminate "inactive" time at work. The work itself is also often intensive, leaving workers too exhausted to maintain a private life.60

The combination of insecure contracts with uncertain hours – "double fexibility" – makes things even worse. In the words of a fexible home-care worker with a school-aged daughter: "You don't know what your week will look like. You can't make arrangements for your daughter. Everything is subject to change."61 Research in the United States underlines the importance of regular, predictable working hours, with workers, on average, willing to surrender 20% of their pay in return for greater control over their hours.62

55Some 45% of respondents in 1990 considered good working hours important; in 2018 it was 68% (Conen, 2020).

56Eurofound (2017).

57Houtman et al. (2020).

58On-call workers also include many school, college and university students; 70% are under the age of 25. We are not talking about them here, but about adults working to build independent lives. 59Kremer (2017); van der Gaag (2018).

60Piasna (2018).

61Kremer et al. (2017c): 104.

62Mas and Pallais (2017). See also Datta (2019), who concluded from research in the us and the uk that although atypical workers may like fexibility, they still prefer permanent jobs and that many would settle for less pay if it means greater job security.

Another form of labour fexibilization, self-employment, can be considered more accommodating *for* the working person. People who became their own boss often report they did so to combine work and care; better able to balance their personal and professional lives, they tend to be more satisfed with their situations, especially if they chose it themselves.63 Among informal care-givers, the self-employed outnumber those with salaried positions.64 It suggests that employers still do not take work-life balance seriously enough, although research shows that companies and institutions that allow personnel to tailor their work to their home situations have lower staff turnover, more enthusiastic employees and less absenteeism.65

## **5.4 Blurring Boundaries**

The self-employed sometimes have diffculties demarcating their working and private lives. This became apparent in the interviews conducted for our previous publication, *For the Sake of Security.*66 In their free time, freelancers often feel they should be generating turnover: "The work goes on all the time". This feeling of working all the time is the fip side of working from home.

Almost one-third of employees in the Netherlands regularly work overtime – most notably managers, teachers and university graduates aged 25–35.67 Many must bring work home to fnish their allotted tasks.68 But it is not always clear anymore what people see as overtime. In one study, highly educated professionals did not consider reading and replying to e-mails as work.69 They did this in front of the television in the evening and on Sundays, to be ready for work the next day – a clear case of blurring boundaries. While many professionals feel perpetually on call,70 they need time to recover and would beneft from clear dividing lines between their work and personal lives.

The internet and portable devices are further blurring the boundaries of work. Digital technology is a double-edged sword; in a joint report, Eurofound and the ilo71 found smartphones, tablets, laptops and the like affecting the quality of work in both positive and negative ways. On the one hand, these technologies can improve

63Annink (2017).

64 Josten and Vlasblom (2017).

65Kamerstukken ii, 2010/2011, 32 889, No. 3.

66Kremer (2017): 116.

67 cbs (2018h, July 24).

68 van Echtelt et al. (2016).

69Gregg (2011).

70Duxbury and Smart (2011).

71Eurofound & International Labour Organization (2017).

work-life balance, reduce commuting time and stimulate productivity.72 Teleworking makes it easier for parents of young children to remain working full-time.73 On the other hand, these technologies can lengthen working days, increase workloads and fuel work-life conficts.74 Many countries have thus begun imposing limits on how far workers can be contacted outside of their offcial hours. Since 1 January 2017, employees in France have the legal right to switch off their phones outside of working hours; several companies in Germany including bmw and Volkswagen entitle their employees to be "unreachable". In the Netherlands, a 2019 parliamentary bill introduced the "right to inaccessibility" – a prerogative already included in some collective labour agreements.

## **5.5 Conclusion: Control in Life Requires More than Just Part-Time Work**

It is easier to balance work and private life in the Netherlands than in many other countries. This is largely due to how public policy supports working part-time – meaning people are not forced to devote themselves entirely to work during life's busy periods. The question nevertheless remains whether certain groups – especially moderately and less educated women – would not work longer hours if there

Neutral Positive Negative

72Cal Newport (2016) argues that the omnipresence of the internet and portable devices means we are no longer in the phase of "deep work". Work has become fragmented; our brains must constantly process information, which takes time and energy.

73Chung and van der Horst (2017).

74Houtman et al. (2017).

was better public care for the young and the elderly. This would not only enable these groups to work more; it would encourage them to fnd better work. People without good work are more prepared to work less.

Care responsibilities generally remain unremunerated in the Netherlands; despite the high levels of workforce participation, opportunities for paid leave are limited. This means that especially female part-time workers pay a personal price for their commitment to care-giving. There is a social price as well, and the future may well see greater inequality between those who can negotiate (and afford) work arrangements that allow them to care for family and those who cannot. Control over working hours is crucial to control in life but is often limited or non-existent for low-skilled, temporary and on-call workers. While control in life is a cherished goal for most working people, it is certainly not something they all have.

## **5.6 Part 1 – Conclusion: Work Could Be better**

People in the Netherlands are generally quite satisfed with their work. Nevertheless, there is substantial room for improvement across the three conditions necessary for work to be considered good: security of income, control over work and work-life balance. Based on Statistics Netherlands' *Monitor of Well-Being*, Fig. 5.5 places the quality of work in the Netherlands in European perspective (the slices) and in light of recent developments (the inner ring). As we see, the Netherlands does not consistently rank well (green) across the twelve indicators of good work. In some areas, the country lags behind other European nations or the quality of work has been deteriorating (red). In other areas, the Netherlands is mid-range or there have been few positive developments (grey).

## *5.6.1 Good Work in the Netherlands?*

With the fexibilization of the labour market, more and more workers in the Netherlands have lost income security. If people have not experienced this uncertainty themselves, their partner, child or neighbour has. While the Dutch economy – even during the Covid-19 crisis – was generating a lot of jobs, many of these come with low (and further declining) job security. The social-security system itself has become a source of insecurity for many working people, especially the selfemployed who are largely excluded from work-related social benefts.

While the Netherlands still scores better than many other European countries, workplace autonomy – necessary for shielding workers from excessive demands, for organizations to function effectively and for innovation – is declining. And although many Dutch workplaces offer social support, they can also be settings for

**Fig. 5.5** Quality of work in the Netherlands, in Europe and over time: twelve indicators Source: WRR, inspired by the *Monitor of Well-Being* (cbs)

aggressive behaviour; companies and institutions do not always bring out the best in people, especially for ethnic minorities and people with occupational disabilities. Nor has the kind of learning and professional development that would contribute to security of employment been widely embraced.

With widespread opportunities to work part-time, work and private life are easy to combine in the Netherlands. But the costs are borne by individuals, especially women. The country has limited paid leave arrangements to care for young children and the elderly although working people are increasingly likely to be assuming responsibilities for aging parents.

Publicly-funded child and elderly care make work possible. While quality childcare enables parents to work (more) – and encourages them to do so – the Netherlands does not excel in this area. Although care for the elderly is highly developed, there is scant emphasis on supporting working people who provide care outside of their working hours. The ability to determine when work starts and stops is important for work-life balance but not everyone has suffcient control over their working hours to allow taking on informal care responsibilities as well. In short, control in life is unevenly distributed.

## *5.6.2 Dividing Lines*

The quality of work is under pressure for all working people in the Netherlands. Insecurity is increasing across the board and burnout is widespread. In this sense, there is no clear polarization between good and bad jobs, between "MacJobs" and "McJobs". There is no guarantee of good work, even for university graduates. That said, some people clearly have better work than others. People with modest educational qualifcations on aggregate have less control over the three dimensions of good work. Women, too, generally earn less, are more insecure and enjoy less control over their work. The same applies to people with migration backgrounds.