PAPER WITHDRAWN--4538----Trends in Female Labour Market Participation and Work-Family Policies in the Netherlands.

The division of paid and unpaid work between men and women is still unbalanced in the Netherlands and this has an important impact on income and power relations. The employment rate of women is much lower than the employment rate of men. The number of working hours, the kind of work and their positions in the labour market diverge. The gendered division of labour gets even stronger when employees become parents. A great majority of women quits the job (11%) or reduces their working time after the birth of the first child (49%). Only 9% of the fathers quit or reduce the working time (SCP & CBS: Emancipatiemonitor 2006, p. 110).Policies of the Dutch government are aimed at achieving a better work-life balance. Part of this strategy is a better quality of non-standard work such as casual work, part-time work and fixed-term contracts. A right to adjust one's individual working time has been introduced by statutory legislation in 2000. Bills aimed at facilitating the conciliation of work and family life and on childcare have been adopted and been subject to evaluations. A recently adopted Act on lifecycle agreements should facilitate career interruptions. Currently more fundamental questions are being discussed, such as changes to the social security system. This paper will sketch these recent developments in the Netherlands, assessing them from a gender perspective. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]