Increasing part-time working hours in the Netherlands. Identifying policy recommendations through Group Model Building

Abstract

With 73% of women and 19% of men working part-time,the Netherlands is known as the champion of part-time work. In order to increase especially the working hours of women with small part-time jobs (less than 20 hours per week) the Dutch government installed a thinktank of employers, employees and goverment . This Taskforce Part-time-Plus commissioned two related studies on the relationship between ambitions, part-time work and gender. A quantitative and a qualitative study focused on the relation between women’s working hours and ambition. Group Model Building was used to integrate the results of the two studies into a causal loop diagram and to derive policy recommendations. This papers describes the results of the Group Model Building process and reflects upon the usefulness of the method for translating research results in policy recommendations.