Forget 40 hours: The Dutch achievement in just 32 hours a week – made women possible

Workers in the Netherlands between the ages of 20 and 64 worked on average 32.1 hours a week in 2024, according to To data from Eurostat. The country has the highest rate of shorter work in Europe, followed by Austria, Germany and Denmark, all of which are about 34 hours at work.

On the other hand, the Americans worked full -time on average 42.9 hours per week in 2024, according to Gallup survey– This is actually improved in 2019, when American employees scored in 44.1 hours per week. Not only that North America puts grinding, as more than a third of the European Union workers spent nearly 40 to 45 hours in the weekly job last year, according to Eurostat data.

How helped women in the workforce in converting the Netherlands to 32 hours working

There is a basic reason for making the Dutch quietly turned into a four -day working week: women. After entering the workforce, things will never be the same.

Like many other countries around the world, the Netherlands used to work on a business model that focuses on male men’s position as alarms. The weeks were longer, more similar to the traditional week of America for 40 hours-but then women began to join the workforce in part-time roles starting in the eighties.

Over the next few decades, the participation of the workforce of women will turn the structure of family gain and tax symbols of the country. The Netherlands continued to adopt a “one and a half” earning model, where one of the parents worked full -time and the other part -time. The purchase system has been strengthened with tax exemptions and benefits, and the work pattern has become a standard among all the employees of both sexes. Even working parents were benefiting from the new structure, as they were working early to care for their young children.

You can fight the shortest work rates than unemployment – and women working in America need them

Today, the change of policy is not only Helping working parents Care responsibilities – they keep people in the workforce, as other countries are struggling with unemployment rates.

In 1991, just as a largest number of women took part -time roles in the Netherlands, the unemployment rate in the country reached 7.3 %, according to. To data from World Bank. After only a decade, this number decreased significantly – only 2.1 % of the country’s population was unemployed. While there are fluctuations in the following years, the unemployment rate has remained steady since 2018, as it is currently resting by only 3.6 %. Since its citizens have more flexible options for the work week, more is able to stay in the workforce while they disappear their personal responsibilities.

Relatively, the unemployment rate in the United States was only 4.2 % in July. According to American work statistics office. But with the population of the United States more than 342 million people, compared to the Netherlands With only 17.8 million citizens, the difference represents 0.6 % in unemployment rates millions and additional millions of work. There is one group of people who may be at risk of unemployed in the United States: women.

Whether it is a pendulum Slack RTOand Low promotionsOr a Change the social sceneWomen It is pushed Of the workforce in large numbers: between January and June this year, 212,000 women between the ages of 20 or the largest American workforce left, according to BLS analysis. Meanwhile, 44,000 workforce men entered the same time period. In that six months, the employment rate for women between the ages of 25 and 44 decreased with a child under five years from 69.7 % to 66.9 %.

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