A day with the Dutch
A day with the Dutch
Time use in the Netherlands and fifteen other
European countries
Mariëlle Cloïn
The Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp
The Hague, June 2012
The Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp was established by Royal Decree of March 30, 1973
with the following terms of reference:
a to carry out research designed to produce a coherent picture of the state of social and cultural
welfare in the Netherlands and likely developments in this area;
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advantages and disadvantages of the various means of achieving those ends;
c to seek information on the way in which interdepartmental policy on social and cultural welfare is
implemented with a view to assessing its implementation.
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© The Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp, The Hague 2012
Editing: Julian Ross, Carlisle, uk
dtp: Textcetera, The Hague
Figures: Mantext, Moerkapelle
Cover illustration: © Ien van Laanen, Amsterdam
Cover design: Bureau Stijlzorg, Utrecht
isbn 978 90 377 0606 2
nur 740
Distribution outside the Netherlands and Belgium: Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (usa)
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content
Content
Foreword
7
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
A day with the Dutch
Do the Dutch have a distinctive time use pattern?
Macro-level factors and cross-country differences in time use
Dutch time use research
Data, constraints and reading instructions
9
9
10
13
15
2
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
Time use in daily life in the Netherlands and fifteen other European
countries
How much time?
The general time use pattern
Personal care
Total workload (obligations)
Free time: social activities and relaxation
Travel
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18
19
21
23
26
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
Time use and gender differences
He does, she does
Paid work
Household tasks
Childcare
Total workload for women and men (the combination of obligations)
30
30
30
34
37
39
4
4.1
4.2
41
41
4.3
4.4
Same amount of time, different time use patterns?
Time use patterns across countries considered simultaneously
An analysis of the time use patterns of the population in sixteen
European countries
Women’s time use pattern cross-nationally
Men’s time use pattern cross-nationally
42
45
47
5
Concluding remarks
50
Notes
52
References
53
Publications of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp in English
58
5
fore word
Foreword
Quite a lot is known about the time use of the Dutch population. But do the time use
patterns of the Dutch differ from those of people in other countries? Despite the long
tradition that scp has built up in the field of time use surveys, it has long been difficult
to compare the time use of the Dutch with that of residents of other countries. That
situation has now changed, and this report shows how the time use of the Dutch differs
from or corresponds with that of other Europeans.
This is the first scp publication to contain the results of time use surveys from sixteen
different countries. Trends and changes in time use in the Netherlands were followed
closely by scp every five years between 1975 and 2005. Respondents in that study kept
a diary for a week, in which they recorded their activity from hour to hour. Given
the s­ pecific method used in the Netherlands, however, the results were not readily
­comparable with the results of research in other countries. In 2005/2006, two rounds of
the Dutch Time Use Survey (t bo) were conducted. The 2005 round used the method that
had been usual in the Netherlands up to that point; in 2006, the study was carried out
based on the guidelines developed by Eurostat for the Harmonised European Time Use
Surveys (he t us).
This report focuses on Dutch time use data from 2006. Fifteen other European ­countries
have also carried out time use surveys based on the European guidelines in the last
­decade. Together, these data constitute the source on which this report is based.
Although time use in the Netherlands is the main focus, results from other countries
are also discussed. Attention is also given to the overlaps and differences in time use
­patterns in the Netherlands and the other countries studied.
This study is an extended summary of the Dutch-language report Nederland in een dag.
Tijdsbesteding in Nederland vergeleken met die in vijftien andere Europese landen (‘A day with the
Dutch. Time use in the Netherlands compared to fifteen other European countries’)
(http://www.scp.nl/content.jsp?objectid=28291). The figures from the Dutchlanguage ­report are partly replicated here, but the description of the results is more
­internationally oriented.
Professor Paul Schnabel
Director, Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp
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a day w ith the dutch
1
A day with the Dutch
1.1
Do the Dutch have a distinctive time use pattern?
How do people in the Netherlands use their time, and are there any differences compared with other countries? Do the Dutch have busy lives? Compared with the United
States, the Netherlands has been characterized as a ‘leisure paradise’ (Robinson and
De Haan 2006). In cross-national research on paid work in Europe, the Netherlands has
been called the only part-time economy in the world (Visser 2002), simply because there
are no other countries where so many women are in part-time employment as in the
Netherlands. Based on these descriptions, one might expect the Netherlands to occupy
a special position in terms of time use compared to other countries. Is this expectation
borne out in reality? Or does a more nuanced picture emerge when the focus is on what
people actually do with their time?
Time use data are particularly suitable for answering questions such as these, and the
Netherlands has a long tradition of collecting time use data. Since 1975 (and occasionally even before) a time use survey has been conducted at five-yearly intervals, following
a quite similar design until 2005. From these surveys, a good deal is known about how
the Dutch spend their time and about changes in that time use over the years. The data
make it possible to describe and analyse how time use varies between groups in society
and how patterns and changes occur in society (see e.g. Van den Broek and Breedveld
2004). Unfortunately, the international comparability of the Dutch time use surveys was
low due to specific elements in the design. For a long time, therefore, it was not readily
possible to include the Netherlands in international comparisons and cross-national
statistics.
Time use surveys have also been conducted in several other countries. Most of these
surveys, like the Dutch survey, were not designed for making international comparisons. That situation has changed: between 1998 and 2006, fifteen European countries
held a Time Use Survey based on a comparable European framework. In the light of the
perceived increased need to enhance comparability with other countries, the Dutch
survey was also conducted in accordance with Eurostat guidelines in 2006 (Harmonized
European Time Use Survey, he t us). Then it did become possible to compare time use in
the Netherlands to that in fifteen other European countries. The results of this comparison have been published in a comprehensive Dutch report1. This study is an extended
summary of that Dutch report. The figures from the Dutch report will be partly replicated here, while the description of the results will be more internationally oriented.
This study
While this is the first time that the Netherlands has been part of an international comparative study of time use, the focus is still mainly on the Netherlands. This means that
the time use of the Dutch will be highlighted, as well as being be compared to other
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a day w ith the dutch
countries. Throughout the study, special attention is given to gender differences in time
use: time use patterns are known to differ between men and women, but not to the
same extent in all countries. Time use data are particularly useful for assessing gender
differences, since they provide information on both paid and unpaid activities in daily
life. Finally, the study not only provides information on separate time use categories or
countries, but also focuses on an overall picture of association in time use between the
countries studied. To what extent do countries show differences or resemblances in time
use patterns? And with which countries does Dutch time use share correspondences?
The question addressed in this study is as follows:
How does time use in the Netherlands compare with that in fifteen European comparison
countries, namely, Belgium, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden,
Finland, Slovenia, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain and Italy?
With this central question in mind, this study fulfils several goals. One goal is to inform
readers about time use in the Netherlands, and to enable comparison of Dutch time use
with that in other countries. As well as informing, a further aim of this study is to offer
some interpretation where differences in time use occur. Although the aggregate level
of the data does not permit the performance of explanatory analyses (see later), we can
often still say something about possible causes of differences in time use. Since the study
is concerned with differences between countries, the focus is mainly on macro-level
factors.
1.2 Macro-level factors and cross-country differences in time use
Countries differ among other things with respect to their institutional context, ­policies,
cultural norms and economic prosperity. Very well known with respect to social policy
institutions is Esping-Andersen’s (1990, 1999) three-fold typology of welfare regime
types. Focusing mainly on social security and family policies, the ‘conservativecorporatist’ regime type is characterized by income maintenance mainly related to
occupational status, with the ‘male breadwinner model’ long dominating the division
of tasks between the sexes. Germany, France and Belgium are examples of this type of
system that are part of this study. In the ‘liberal’ regime type, state support and provisions are fairly meagre, and are generally restricted to those in need (i.e. unable to
work). Additional coverage is mainly offered through private provisions. In this study,
only the uk can be characterized as this type, although the uk is generally considered
to be less ‘typical’ of the liberal regime (e.g. Vrooman 2009). Finally, there is the ‘social-­
democratic’ regime type. The Scandinavian countries, typical examples of this type,
have the most generous provisions in Europe. At the same time, employment for both
men and women is a central theme and supported through family and employment policies (leave arrangements, childcare). In terms of time use, the incentives or limitations
emanating from social policy might encourage or constrain inhabitants of different
countries in spending their time in a certain way (Gershuny and Sullivan 2003).
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a day w ith the dutch
Although these regime types crop up in most research, there is still a lot of cross-­
national variation: countries develop continuously and have their own path dependency.
Pure types of the welfare state regimes are said hardly ever to occur. Most countries
constitute some kind of hybrid case (Arts and Gelissen 2010); the Netherlands in particular is often classified as hybrid. Also, there has been some debate on whether and how
Southern and Eastern European countries fit into the welfare regime typology. EspingAndersen (1999) argues that the differences between the Southern European countries
and those in Western Europe, in particular, are not large enough to distinguish a
separate Mediterranean regime. Instead, he posits that they are a transitional or less developed form of the conservative-corporatist regime type. Some do however argue for a
separate Mediterranean or Southern European regime type to be distinguished (Ferrera
2010). The Eastern European countries form a diverse mix in terms of social policy and
development after the transition from Communism. As with Southern Europe, there
is still debate among scholars about whether the post-Communist countries should be
included as a distinct regime type in the welfare regime typology (Fenger 2007, Ferrera
2010; Cook 2010).
Countries and welfare states also vary in the degree to which care for others (children,
older persons) is supported by the government through formal care services or is left
mainly to the responsibility of the family (Bettio and Plantenga 2004; Pommer et
al. 2007). Roughly speaking (‘care regimes’ are not easily characterized), there is the
Scandinavian model of public services on the one hand and the Southern European
‘familialistic’ care model on the other. Western European countries are situated more
or less in the middle: the family is the primary caring unit, but persons with more
serious health problems have a legal entitlement to public services. The Netherlands
(and also the uk) have high levels of formal care services (residential care) albeit on a
somewhat lower level than the Scandinavian countries. Also, there are a lot of nuances
between and within countries. In the Netherlands, for instance, care for children is less
institutionalized than the care for older persons, and a recent development is that responsibility has shifted from the government to the citizen (Pommer et al. 2007).
The way in which policy and care regimes are organized also interacts with gender differences that exist between countries. A large body of literature documents the fact
that the welfare regime typologies (Esping-Andersen 1999) coincide only partially with
cross-national variation in gender inequality. Several typologies have been suggested to
deal with unpaid work, the integration of work and care, the role of women in society
and the division of tasks between men and women in society (Pfau-Effinger 2004; Lewis
1992, 2008). These typologies are mostly based on the extent to which traditional roles
are ascribed to women and men in different countries. Recently, for instance, Sayer and
Gornick (2011) characterized the Netherlands and the uk as typifying the ‘one-and-a-half
earner’ model where women have the primary care role. France and Slovenia where characterized as representing the ‘dual earner/woman carer’ model and Norway and Sweden
as ‘dual earner/dual carer’ countries. There is however no one dominant typology akin
to the regime typology. In terms of differences in cultural norms, research has shown
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a day w ith the dutch
that the views on women’s employment and the division of care responsibilities is most
egalitarian in Northern Europe, while they are generally more traditional in Southern
Europe. The Netherlands occupies an intermediate position : although the Dutch
have egalitarian views concerning the division of tasks between the sexes, they show
the strongest agreement (along with the Spanish) that family life, and especially children, suffer when a woman works full-time (Portegijs and Keuzenkamp 2008). Eastern
European countries have a long tradition of full-time working women and state-supported childcare facilities. Nevertheless, this ‘egalitarian model’ coexists with traditional
views on family roles (Siemienska 2000), which if anything seem to be becoming more
traditional (Haas et al. 2006).
Part of the cross-national variation in the patterns of time use may be ascribed to the
aforementioned institutional and cultural factors. It may for example be hypothesized
that in countries that stimulate and facilitate women’s labour market employment,
women spend more time on paid work and less on unpaid care tasks (Gerhuny and
Sullivan 2003; Gershuny 2008; Van der Lippe et al. 2010). Following the same line of reasoning, it may be expected that in countries where the care regime and the social norms
concerning women’s role are mainly family-oriented, women will spend more time on
care. This might in turn have effects on the amount of leisure time available (Gershuny
and Sullivan 2003). Thus, although countries with similar regime traits might show more
or less the same time use patterns, policies may have different outcomes in different
countries because of gender norms (although influences between institutions and social
norms are probably bidirectional) or other differences between countries.
Besides policy and gender regime types, other traits such as economic prosperity are also
associated with time use differences, although for time use devoted to paid work, the
relationship is not entirely clear-cut. On the one hand, one might expect that in countries with highly developed economies, people have more incentive to spend time on
paid labour because this pays off, not only in financial terms but also in terms of status
and career. On the other hand, people might choose free time over paid work because,
economically speaking, a higher income can lead to an increased demand for leisure
time (Dekker and Ederveen 2005, Van der Lippe et al. 2010). From this point of view, the
amount of free time available is also a measure of the standard of living and welfare
(Fleming and Spellerberg 1999, oecd 2009). Economic prosperity also creates a greater
supply of leisure activities, i.e. more freedom of choice in leisure activities, and also influences how and where people travel (Breedveld and Van den Broek 2004). Although less
extensively studied, economic prosperity is also linked to time use devoted to care tasks:
in countries with a high level of economic prosperity, less time is spent on household
tasks (Knudsen and Waerness 2008) but more on childcare and volunteering (Uunk et al.
2005; Van Oorschot and Arts 2005; ghk 2010: 68). According to Eurostat (2010), Norway is
the richest country (in terms of gdp) of the countries included in this study, followed by
the Netherlands. Next are Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Germany and the uk, then the two
Southern countries; the lowest in rank are the Eastern European countries.
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Practical or circumstantial factors also influence time use patterns, such as differences
between countries in climate and weather and the physical (infra)structure of countries, such as land use density (Spinney and Millward 2011; Fischer and Robinson 2010;
Zivin and Neidell 2010). Finally there are the (unintended) effects of other policies that
exert countervailing influences or produce distinct interactions with time use (Van den
Broek 1999).
As mentioned earlier, our goal is to gain and describe new insights into time use and to
interpret our results in relation to the literature on cross-national variation in policy,
gender norms, economic prosperity and other macro-factors. Apart from the fact that
the theoretical thinking on how macro-factors and interactions between them (can)
affect actual time use patterns in different countries is far from complete, the data do
not allow to perform explanatory analysis. This has to do with the aggregate level of the
data (see later). We therefore rely on the literature on cross-national variation in macrofactors in relation to time use differences to interpret the differences found, but we do
not test the direct effects ourselves.
1.3
Dutch time use research
The Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp has been involved in the Dutch Time
Use Survey (in Dutch: ‘Tijdsbestedingsonderzoek’ or ‘t bo’) since 1975. Since that time,
data were collected every five years. The last Survey took place in 2005. During that
­period, the method of data collection has remained largely unchanged: approximately
2,000 respondents kept a diary for seven consecutive days (a full week), recording what
they were doing at 15-minute intervals based on a precoded list of activities. The fieldwork was carried out in the first or the second week of October. In addition, two
questionnaires accompanied the diary. The Dutch Time Use Survey is unique in its long
time span of collecting time use data over a seven-day period. Owing to this long tradition, changes in time use could be followed over decades (see e.g. Van den Broek and
Breedveld 2004).
…the international perspective
One drawback of the Dutch data was the lack of international compatibility: the data
were never designed for this purpose. Nevertheless, it was occasionally possible to
compare Dutch time use with that in other countries. In 2003/2004 the Eurobarometer
survey focused on time use (Eurobarometer 60.3, see Groot and Breedveld 2004; Dekker
and Ederveen 2005; Torres et al. 2007). However, information on time use in this case
was derived from a questionnaire with retrospective questions regarding the time
usually spent on different activities such as paid work, household tasks and caring for
children. Time use data were thus not collected by means of a diary, whereas the diary
method is believed to provide the most accurate record of time use (Juster and Stafford
1991; Robinson and Godbey 1997).
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The Multinational Time Use Study (m t us), first developed in the early 1980s, was the
first database to consist of time use diary-based surveys from many countries. However,
the content of the m t us dataset is based on output (ex-post) harmonisation: the m t us
draws on country time use surveys of differing quality, which use different data collection methods and coding systems. The Dutch time use data are also part of the m t us
database (see e.g. Sayer et al. 2004; Hook 2006; Van der Lippe et al. 2010 for applications). However, because of the drawbacks of ex-post harmonization, he t us is to date
considered to be the most important multi-national time use survey with ex-ante harmonization (Jeskanen-Sundström 2009).
...and the European guidelines (hetus)
The guidelines on Harmonised European Time Use Surveys (he t us) were first issued
in 2000 (European Communities 2004b) and updated in 2008 (European Communities
2009). The guidelines recommend using a two-day diary with one weekday (MondayFriday) and one weekend day (Saturday or Sunday). It is also recommended that data be
collected year-round, using 10-minute intervals and an open system of self-reporting of
activities (respondents record the activities in their own words). Through these guidelines, Eurostat promotes the organization of time-use surveys among its (candidate)
member states. Between 1999 and 2006, fifteen countries carried out time use studies
following (to varying degrees) the he t us guidelines (see later).
Given the long history and the possible loss of retrospective national comparable data,
the Dutch national design was followed in the Netherlands until 2005. In 2006, driven
by a strong perceived need to enhance comparability with other countries, a Dutch time
use survey was conducted in accordance with the Eurostat guidelines. In order to ­assess
the differences between and consequences of the ‘Dutch’ and the ‘Hetus’ methods,
­double measurements were carried out in 2005 and 2006. The 2006 survey was conducted in accordance with Eurostat guidelines and was subsidized by n wo (the Dutch
Scientific Council). Obviously, the he t us guidelines led to some major design changes.
First of all, the fieldwork period changed; the 2005 t bo was held in October only, while
the 2006 t bo was year-round. Additionally the measurement unit changed from 15 to
10-minute time slots and the precoded list of activities was replaced by a method of selfreporting. The Dutch 2005 t bo and he t us 2006 t bo were compared (see Kamphuis
et al. 2009, in Dutch). A decision was then made to follow the he t us guidelines in the
future. In March 2011, new fieldwork (in collaboration with Statistics Netherlands (cbs))
began, in accordance with the he t us guidelines.
Of course, the he t us data (except those from the Netherlands) have been published
before (see e.g. Aliaga 2006; Fisher and Robinson 2010, 2011). One notable example
is the study conducted by the European Communities (2004a), the pocketbook on how
Europeans spend their time. The aim of that study is to shed light on how daily life is
organised in ten European countries. There are some differences between that study and
the present study; for example, the pocketbook was restricted to ten European countries, since data from six countries (including the Netherlands) were not yet included in
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the data set in 2004; also, the pocketbook does not provide any interpretation of differences found, nor does it provide an overall picture of associations in time use between
countries. We do both in this study.
1.4 Data, constraints and reading instructions
The data presented in this study for all the countries except the Netherlands are drawn
from the online he t us database https://www.h2.scb.se/tus/tus/Default.htm. This
database provides time use data for fifteen European countries, collected between 1998
(France) and 2006 (Belgium). Statistics Finland checked and harmonised the national
data files and prepared the metadata. The time use data from the Netherlands (collected
in 2006) are not included in this database, but are administered by the Netherlands
­Institute for Social Research | scp, which also performed quality checks and determined
the weighting factor for the data.
Despite the advantages of using internationally comparable data, a number of ­qualifying
comments need to be made here. First of all, the he t us data are only available at the
aggregate level. Such data allow for comparisons between countries and population
groups, but (as mentioned earlier) do not permit analysis of the influence of macrofactors, for example, such as the different institutional contexts (government policy and
cultural views) and circumstances (such as economic prosperity and climate) to explain
differences in time use between countries. Therefore, interpretations of differences in
time use are provided in this study based on the existing research literature on these
factors, without subjecting them to empirical analysis ourselves. In addition, it is not
possible to perform statistical significance tests for these data, so that the differences
observed need not always necessarily be significant. This should be kept in mind when
reading the results.
Secondly, limitations stem from the fact that there are still some differences between
the country surveys, even though all countries have followed the he t us guidelines.
Some differences relate to the year of data collection, the number of diary days and the
samples studied. First, as noted earlier, the country surveys were conducted in different
years (1998 -2006); on the other hand, since time use research shows that changes tend
to occur slowly, this should not be a major problem for the comparability of the results.
One exception is time devoted to the use of computers and the Internet, which has
been one of the most rapidly expanding activities over the last few years (Huysmans and
De Haan 2010). Next, there are differences across countries in the age of the population
covered; however, all countries provide information for people aged between 20 and
74 years, which is therefore the default age setting in this report. When a different age
category is selected (e.g. 20-64 years (working age)), this is mentioned in the text and tables. In addition, not all countries followed the two days guideline. In the two Southern
European countries and France, only one diary day was surveyed and in Norway two consecutive days were recorded (for more information, see the metadata on applied survey
methods, Statistics Finland, https://www.h2.scb.se/tus/tus/doc/Metadata.pdf). In the
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Netherlands, seven diary days were collected per respondent. To simulate the two-day
registration, one weekday and one weekend day were selected for each respondent. This
was done based on the selection of two ‘heavy days’ during the diary week. I.e. days on
which the respondents received a support call from the interviewer and an extra check
was carried out on the diary. The respondents were unaware of those days being ‘heavy
days’. The two ‘heavy days’, one weekday and one weekend day, were selected for each
respondent for this study.
Third, the quality of the data, and more specifically the quality of the diary-keeping,
might differ from one county to another. One quality indicator for this is the number
of episodes, i.e. the number of time periods per day in which the activity on which the
respondent spends time changes. It is assumed that a lower episode count indicates less
detail and thus probably less accuracy (United Nations 2005), for example because of
fewer instructions on the diary-keeping. Of the he t us countries, the Nordic countries
had the highest number of episode counts (around 26), whereas Bulgaria and France had
the lowest (19.9 and 18.8 respectively, see Statistics Finland: 48). However, in the latter
two countries, the time recorded as being spent on secondary activities was much higher, which might mitigate the lower primary episodes count. The mean in the Dutch 2006
time use survey is 29.8 activity episodes per day, which is thus higher than in the other
countries. Although it is a point to note, the difference between the Netherlands and the
Nordic countries is not particularly high. In addition, the differences found might also
reflect actual behaviour (for instance a different time use pattern). This remains unclear
for the moment.
Finally, some differences found might possibly reflect cultural differences in reporting
rather than actual differences in time use. For instance, the time use category ‘eating’
is classified as personal care. However, this does not necessarily match the experience
of the respondents themselves; it is likely that in some countries more than in others,
eating might be considered to be a social event rather than personal care. Therefore,
readers should interpret the results cautiously.
The tables and figures in this report
The tables and figures presented in this report show different measures of time use.
The first, most general measure which is presented most of the time is the average time
spent on an activity in hours: minutes per day by the population (aged 20-74 years). This
means that time spent by all persons is considered, whether the activity in question was
performed or not. Also, all days of the week (weekdays and weekend days) across the
whole year as well as sick days and holiday periods are included. This general measure
thus represents time use on any given day during a year. This explains why, for example,
the time spent on paid work is considerably less than one would expect on a normal
working day.
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While interesting, this measure of time use can mask substantial differences. This is the
case, for example, when a large proportion of the population engages in an activity but
for only a short time per participant. The same holds true, albeit in the opposite direction, when only a limited number of individuals undertake an activity but for a relatively
long time. In order to obtain a clearer insight into differences in time use, the next
step is to present the participation rate (the proportion of participants or ‘doers’ in the
population). Sometimes, the average time spent (or duration) per participant (i.e. for the
doers of this activity) is also presented. This is especially the case when there is a wide
difference between the average time use of participants (people who reported doing the
activity in their diary) and the population as a whole.
The countries are presented in terms of their geographical location, going from Western
Europe to the North, East and finally the South.
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2 Time use in daily life in the Netherlands and fifteen
other European countries
2.1
How much time?
Everyone has the same amount of time at their disposal: 24 hours a day and 168 hours
per week. Despite the fact that there are certain constants in the allocation of time (all
­people regularly engage in activities like sleep and eating), considerable variation is
possible between countries as regards the activities on which time is spent and how
much time is spent on them. This chapter considers time use patterns across the European countries studied. To be precise, it concerns time use of the population aged 20 to
74 years averaged over a weekday and weekend day. All the possible activities which a
person can perform during a day are subdivided into a number of categories (in line with
other time use studies). These are personal care (sleeping, eating, showering, dressing,
eating, etc.), obligations (study, paid work, household tasks and childcare), free time
(besides activities such as television watching, participating in sports or exercise, reading, watching films, and so on, also social activities such as socializing, informal care
and voluntary work) and travel. These categories of time use are taken into consideration
in this chapter. We will explore how the population aged 20-74 years in sixteen European
countries allocate their time to these activities. It should be borne in mind that this
relates to time use on any given day during the year (i.e. weekdays or weekend days, sick
days, holidays, etc.), henceforth referred to as an ‘average day’.
2.2 The general time use pattern
Out of every 24 hours in a day, people aged between 20 and 74 years spent a little less
than 11 hours on average on personal care. Their total workload (study, paid work, household tasks and childcare, also referred to as ‘obligations’) takes up 6 hours 50 minutes
per day. The amount of free time is a little under 5 hours per day. On average, people
spent around 1 hour 15 minutes per day travelling in the countries studied.
People thus report that they spend the most time on personal care activities (the majority of which is devoted to sleeping, see figure 2.2). This is the case in all the countries
studied (also see oecd 2010a). Also, people’s total workload exceeds the amount of free
time in all countries. People thus spend more time on obligatory tasks (study, paid work
and care tasks) on an average day than they do on social and leisure activities. The extent to which this is the case, however, varies between countries. The Dutch, Belgians
and Germans, for example, only spend half to three-quarters of an hour per day more
on obligations than they have free time. In these countries, a relatively low amount of
obligatory time (see figure 2.3 and chapter 3) and a relatively large amount of free time
go together (see figure 2.4). In Eastern European countries and in Italy, the difference
between obligations and free time is more than two hours per day. In those countries,
a high total workload goes hand in hand with little free time.
18
time use in da ily life in the te ther l a nd s a nd fif teen other europe a n countr ies
Figure 2.1
Full time use pattern in the Netherlands and fifteen other European countries, population aged
20-74 years (in hours: minutes per daya)
0:59
1:07
1:24
1:09
1:10
1:24
1:15
4:15
4:38
4:25
4:13
4:51
4:35
4:57
7:39
7:19
7:40
6:49
6:44
6:50
10:33
10:49
10:55
11:08
11:14
10:53
Lithuania
Spain
Italy
mean
1:10
Latvia
10:49
1:06
Estonia
10:58
1:09
4:59
4:55
6:32
7:23
6:56
10:25
10:31
10:31
10:54
11:45
Bulgaria
6:14
1:26
Poland
14:00 6:02
12:00
1:16
Slovenia
6:02
16:00
1:27
Finland
5:28
4:24
Sweden
5:31
0:58
5:08
5:46
5:07
5:36
6:43
6:39
6:55
11:49
10:33
10:16
Norway
1:23
United
Kingdom
20:00 5:24
18:00
1:26
Southern
Europe
Eastern Europe
France
1:31
Germany
22:00
Belgium
24:00
Northern
Europe
Western Europe
6:47
6:59
10:00
8:00
6:00 11:01
4:00
2:00
Netherlands
0:00
personal care
obligations
free time
travel
unspecified
a Average over any given weekday or weekend day, henceforth simply referred to as: ‘per day’.
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
Although patterns of time use are generally quite similar across the European countries
considered, some interesting differences are immediately apparent beneath the surface.
In this chapter these differences will be investigated further for each time use category.
In the next chapter, gender differences will be highlighted.
2.3 Personal care
People in the countries studied sleep for between eight and nine hours per period
of 24 hours (figure 2.2). The Dutch sleep for about 8 hours and 10 minutes, which is
approximately the same as in Germany and Sweden and a quarter of an hour less than
the average in the countries studied (8 hours 26 minutes). There is no single country
where people sleep for less than the standard norm of eight hours, although Norway
comes close. This might have to do with varying amounts of sunlight and temperatures,
particularly in the north of Norway, which can have a disturbing effect on sleep routines
(Nilssen et al. 1997; Pallesen et al. 2001). People in Bulgaria and France sleep for longer –
around nine hours. However, in France, time spent resting was coded as sleep whereas it
was coded as ‘restíng’ (a subcategory of free time, see section 2.5) in the other countries.
Consequently, the French data are not exactly comparable with those from the other
19
a day w ith the dutch
countries in this respect. However, this artefact did not occur in Bulgaria (or at least, it
was not reported), and other research also confirms that the French and Bulgarians have
a long night’s sleep (Robinson and Michelson 2010; oecd 2010a).
Time spent eating seems to be a little above the average in Western and Southern
European countries. The Dutch spend almost two hours per day eating, which is slightly
above the average (1 hour 38 minutes per day) and comparable with the time spent
­eating in Spain and Italy. The French and Bulgarians, in addition to sleeping the longest,
also spend the longest eating. People in the Northern and Eastern European countries
studied record less time on eating than in the other countries (with the exception of
Bulgaria).
Figure 2.2
Time spent on personal care in the Netherlands and fifteen other European countries, population
aged 20-74 years (in hours: minutes per day)
8:50
8:23
8:03
8:06
8:27
8:21
8:28
9:07
Bulgaria
0:54
0:48
1:01
0:47
1:54
1:38
1:29
1:28
1:46
8:25
8:40
8:32
8:34
8:18
8:26
mean
8:12
1:25
0:41
Italy
8:25
9:00 1:57
0:53
Spain
8:10
Poland
1:34
Slovenia
1:29
Finland
1:21
1:45
Sweden
1:34
1:49
Norway
1:22
2:00
Lithuania
0:41
0:46
Latvia
0:43
0:51
France
0:46
United
Kingdom
2:15
0:37
0:52
Germany
0:53
Belgium
0:44
Netherlands
10:00
0:44
0:53
Southern
Europe
Eastern Europe
Estonia
12:00
11:00
Northern
Europe
Western Europe
1:15
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
0:00
sleeping
eating
other
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
Considering personal care in total, two countries more or less stand out because of the
higher amount of time spent on personal care: France and Bulgaria. However, despite
differences in geographical location, climate and time spent on other activities, all in all
there appears to be relatively little variation in the amount of time devoted to personal
care (also see oecd 2010a). Unlike many other aspects of daily life, there is no policy
aimed at influencing the time spent on personal care, which is considered to be primarily a private matter. However, the literature suggests that the economic ­situation has
20
time use in da ily life in the te ther l a nd s a nd fif teen other europe a n countr ies
some influence on the time spent on things such as sleeping: people sleep for longer
in times of economic recession, whether or not they are affected by the economic
­situation (e.g. unemployment) (oecd 2009; Edwards 2011 based on American figures).
Unfortunately, any effects of the recent economic crisis cannot be analyzed with these
1998-2006 time use data.
2.4 Total workload (obligations)
Total workload refers to the average amount of time people spend on both paid and
unpaid tasks. In the Netherlands, total workload is often referred to as ‘obligatory’ (see
e.g. Van den Broek and Breedveld 2004). ‘Obligatory’ here does not mean fixed or the
same for everyone, but emphasises that the scope for not performing or for rescheduling these activities is usually limited. Obligatory time incorporates activities devoted to
study, paid work and care tasks in the home; the latter can be subdivided into household
tasks and childcare.
Paid work and household tasks are the most time-consuming obligatory tasks. People
spend an average of 3 hours and 14 minutes per day on paid work and 3 hours and
4 minutes on household tasks. This may seem low, but it should be kept in mind that
the figures cover weekdays, weekends and holidays, and includes both the employed
and non-employed (see next chapter for the number of hours worked on a weekday
by ­women and men). The Dutch spend relatively little time on both activities, namely
2 hours and 41 minutes on paid work and 2 hours and 45 minutes on household tasks.
It may seem a surprising finding that the Dutch spend little time on paid work: after all,
75.8% of the population are employed in the Netherlands, which is much higher than
the oecd average of 66.1% (oecd 2011). Of the countries studied, only Norway has a
higher labour participation rate. Employment rates are noticeably lower in Eastern and
Southern European countries. However, time use data show that despite their high labour force participation, the Dutch devote less time to paid work compared to countries
with lower formal labour participation rates. Explanations for this are that the high labour force participation rate in the Netherlands is combined with a short working hours
regime when looking at actual working time patterns (i.e. practice instead of national
laws and regulations) (Dekker and Ederveen 2005; Anxo 2007; Lee et al. 2007; Sayer
and Gornick 2011). Moreover, of particular relevance is the fact that the Netherlands is
characterised by a high level of part-time employment, especially among women. Threequarters of working women in the Netherlands work part-time (i.e. less than 35 hours per
week). More than half of these women are in small part-time jobs (less than 25 hours per
week) (Portegijs et al. 2008; oecd 2010a). At societal level, many people might be at work
in the Netherlands, but the actual time spent on paid work is low due to the incidence of
both short working hours and part-time work.
Belgium is the only country where lower working hours are found than in the
Netherlands (2 hours and 28 minutes a day). Germans also work an average of less than
21
a day w ith the dutch
three hours per day, which can be considered to be low internationally (see also Fisher
and Robinson 2011; oecd 2011). In France, paid work time is only slightly higher. This
pattern corresponds with the countries with a conservative-corporatist regime type
(Esping-Andersen 2009). In the Eastern (former Communist) and to a lesser extent also in
Southern European countries studied, more time is spent on paid work than in conservative-corporatist regimes, despite the lower formal participation rates in these countries.
This has to do with both the long working hours in those countries and the absence of
part-time work: those employed in the Eastern and Southern European countries tend
to work long hours (Greenan et al. 2007). This might party reflect an economic necessity
to work. Here, working long hours might reflect the opposite of what Gershuny (2000)
found for time use in ‘post-industrial’ countries, namely decreasing work hours, increasing consumption and possibly also a social norm for leisure (Gerhuny 2000; Burda et al.
2007). The latter might be particularly applicable for the Netherlands and other Western
and Northern European countries, although working time is also relatively high in the
social-democratic Nordic countries, which are known for their high employment rates.
The cross-national differences in the amount of time spent on housework are somewhat
flatter than those for paid work. In the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries and
Latvia, household time averages around 2 hours and 45 minutes per day. It is highest in
Bulgaria and Slovenia, at more than 3.5 hours per day. Household time is also relatively
high in Estonia, Poland and Italy. Belgium and France score around the average. Whereas
working time is influenced by factors related to social policies and country-specific employment policies, this is not the case (or to a much lesser extent) for household time
(Gerhuny and Sullivan 2004; Hook 2006, 2010). The total time spent on household tasks
(which is something other than the gendered division of household time that is the
subject of the next chapter) seems to be associated with the economic situation: in countries with high levels of economic prosperity, people spend less time on household tasks
in total (Knudsen and Waerness 2008).
Another care task is childcare. In the countries covered here, time spent on childcare
averages around 20 minutes per day. This mean represents the average childcare time
across all women and men aged 20-74 years, regardless whether they have children (see
chapter 3 for time spent on childcare by mothers and fathers with children up to the age
of 18). At 27 minutes per day, the Dutch spend the most time per day on childcare, together with Norwegians and Poles. In Belgium, Bulgaria and Latvia only 15 minutes per
day on average is spent on childcare. In the next chapter, we explore in more detail how
much time parents spend on childcare each day.
Finally, the average time spent on study is only around 12 minutes per day. This figure relates to the total population aged 20-74 years and time use on study will primary involve
adult or additional education. Most adults will study only for a short period of time during their working life, so these 12 minutes represent small numbers of people who might
spend a lot of time studying but are outnumbered by the majority of people not studying, and who therefore report no time spent on this activity (Fisher and Robinson 2010).
22
time use in da ily life in the te ther l a nd s a nd fif teen other europe a n countr ies
Figure 2.3
Time spent on obligations (study, paid work, household and childcare) in the Netherlands and fifteen
other European countries, population aged 20-74 years (in hours: minutes per day)
Northern
Europe
Western Europe
9:00
Southern
Europe
Eastern Europe
8:00
7:00
6:00
0:18
0:27
0:16
0:23
0:17
3:04
3:02
2:28
2:41
3:02
3:17
3:21
3:32
2:41
0:00 0:09
0:14
0:13
0:14
0:08
0:14
France
Norway
2:45
United
Kingdom
2:39
Germany
2:57
Belgium
3:14
Netherlands
5:00
0:26
0:22
4:00 2:45
0:24
0:21
0:28
0:20
3:29
2:49
0:15
3:26
3:10
3:39
0:14
0:17
2:46
3:07
0:21
0:19
0:20
2:57
3:10
3:03
3:12
3:02
3:14
3:00
study
paid work
3:01
0:17
0:14
0:17
0:13
0:05
0:07
0:10
0:10
0:18
0:13
0:12
Poland
Bulgaria
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Spain
Italy
mean
4:05
3:06
Slovenia
4:12
3:17
Finland
1:00
3:42
3:09
Sweden
2:00
household
childcare
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
Taken together, obligatory tasks occupy 6 hours 50 minutes per day in the countries
studied. The Dutch and Belgians devote the least time to the combinations of these
activities, namely 6 hours 2 minutes per day (see also Bielenski et al. 2002, Dekker
and Ederveen 2005, and oecd (2011), which states that the total workload is lowest in
Western Europe). In the Netherlands and Belgium, few paid hours are combined with few
unpaid hours, resulting in a low total workload (Torres et al. 2007). The time that people
in the other countries spend on obligations varies from half an hour to an hour longer
per day in the Nordic countries (six and a half to seven hours per day in total) to around
40 minutes more per day in Southern Europe. People in Eastern Europe rank among the
busiest: in Slovenia and the Baltic states, especially, long hours of paid work are combined with long hours of unpaid work. The result is a total workload that is about one to
one and a half hours per day longer than in most Western European countries.
2.5 Free time: social activities and relaxation
A low total workload does not necessarily imply a lot of free time. Taken as an average
over a weekday and a weekend day, the amount of free time is a little under five hours
per day. The Dutch have 5 hours 24 minutes free time at their disposal; Norwegians,
­Belgians, Germans and Finns have slightly more free time, while people in Eastern
23
a day w ith the dutch
Europe, in particular, have less. In general, a large overall amount of free time is more
often found in countries that are economically well-off (Gershuny and Sullivan 2003;
oecd 2009).
Free time can be subdivided into several categories. Here, a distinction is made between
social activities and leisure/relaxation. Dutch people aged between 20 and 74 years
devote an average of 1 hour and 22 minutes per day to activities with a social character
(social contacts, volunteering and providing informal help). The average is 1 hour and
9 minutes across the countries studied. The Dutch are thus engaged in social activities
for slightly longer than average. Norway scores highest on social time use, but is not
comparable with the other countries because reporting conversation as a main activity
was encouraged by the diary instructions in Norway, leading to an overestimation of
social contact (European Communities 2004a). For informal help, only small differences
between countries occur (not shown in figure). This is striking, because there are differences between the countries in the extent to which the responsibility for providing
care lies with the family or the state. One might for instance expect informal care to be
more time-consuming in Southern Europe, since the family is an important care provider there. At the same time, one might expect less time to be spent on informal care
in the Nordic countries because of the high levels of formal (state) care services (Bettio
and Plantenga 2004; Pommer et al. 2007). Such differences do not appear to exist, which
might support the idea that care services also facilitate citizens’ social participation
in society rather than diminishing it (crowding out) (Pommer et al. 2007; Van der Meer
2009), resulting in only minor differences between countries. However, in Italy and
Spain it is also common for multiple generations of the same family to live under one
roof (Pommer et al. 2007; Huber et al. 2009), and informal help in this time use survey
is restricted to other households. Much of the ‘care time’ will therefore be counted
as household work. In addition, a part of the care in Spain and Italy is outsourced to
(­female) immigrants (Pommer et al. 2007).
Slightly more time is allocated to volunteering (another aspect of social activities, not
shown separately in figure) in the Western and Northern countries studied than in the
Eastern and Southern countries. A possible explanation lies in the higher level of social
security and prosperity in these areas: economic security and greater prosperity offer citizens more leisure time and opportunities to volunteer (Van der Meer 2009). In addition,
most of the Western and Northern European countries have a long tradition of voluntary
participation in society (Curtis et al. 2001; ghk 2010) whereas this is much more complex
in Eastern European countries. In these countries, social participation was characterized
by political undertones and has developed differently since after the fall of Communism
(Völker 1995; un v 2009).
24
time use in da ily life in the te ther l a nd s a nd fif teen other europe a n countr ies
Figure 2.4
Time spent on free time activities in the Netherlands and fifteen other European countries, population
aged 20-74 years (in hours: minutes per day)
Northern
Europe
Western Europe
7:00
Southern
Europe
Eastern Europe
6:00
3:15
2:31
0:58
1:12
0:41
1:17
1:11
1:12
1:18
Norway
Germany
0:00
sozialising, informal
help, volunteering and
social participation
2:18
2:50
3:04
2:41
2:50
0:28
0:28
0:34
0:20
0:49
0:47
0:48
entertainment and culture,
sport and exercise, recreation,
hobbies and games
media
0:19
0:32
2:07
2:46
0:59
0:43
0:41
0:50
1:07
1:12
1:09
0:29
Poland
Belgiuma
0:59
0:48
Slovenia
Netherlands
1:26
1:59
Finland
1:05
0:47
0:33
France
1:22
0:47
Sweden
0:43
1:00
0:14
2:57
0:48
0:51
0:25
0:21
resting
mean
2:36
3:05
0:19
Italy
2:31
0:09
Spain
3:00
0:13
2:45
2:47
3:13
0:34
Lithuania
2:51
0:22
0:24
Latvia
0:20
0:06
4:00
2:00
0:12
0:18
Estonia
0:29
Bulgaria
0:20
United
Kingdom
5:00
unspecified
a In Belgium, informal help is included in household tasks.
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
The leisure or relaxation part of free time encompasses entertainment, media use and
resting. The average amount of leisure time across the countries studied is 3 hours and
47 minutes on an average week or weekend day. The Dutch devote an average of 4 hours
and 3 minutes to this, which is slightly more than other countries; only the Belgians
(4 hours 26 minutes) and Finns (4 hours 25 minutes) have more time available for this.
Italians and Lithuanians have the least (3 hours 24 minutes). In general, Northern and
Western Europeans (with the exception of the French) have more time for relaxation
than Southern and Eastern Europeans.
A very broad category of leisure time includes all kinds of recreational activities as well
as exercise, hobbies and playing games (going to the cinema, theatre, concerts, exhibitions or museums, sports, etc.). When the time spent on these activities is added up,
Spain and Germany come out as the winners with almost an hour per day. The Dutch
follow very closely, with 57 minutes per day. Further analysis showed that Spain’s high
score is caused mainly by the relatively large amount of time spent on walking and
­hiking (39 minutes per day). It is known that people in the Southern countries spend
more time outside the home thanks to their mild winters and warm summers (Spinney
25
a day w ith the dutch
and Millward 2011), so it is likely that the Spanish also reported ‘being outside, on the
streets’ as walking.
The next broad category captures the vast majority of the free time people have, consisting of all kinds of media use, such as watching television, listening to the radio, reading
and computer use (not for work or study). The lion’s share of media time is devoted to
watching television (and videos/dv ds) (Aliaga 2006; Fisher and Robinson 2011; Spinney
and Millward 2011). People in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy spend the
least amount of time (about an hour and three-quarters per day) on these activities, and
those in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Bulgaria the most (almost 2.5 hours per day)
(not shown in figure, see Fisher and Robinson 2011). The Dutch also spend relatively little
time listening to the radio or music, but a relatively large amount of time using the computer and computer gaming. The latter might be the result of the high share of computer
ownership and (internet) use in the Netherlands, but might also be due to the fact that
the Dutch data date from 2006.
2.6 Travel
People have to go from one place to another in daily life. The total amount of travel
time ranges from just under an hour on an average day to an hour and a half per day.
The Dutch travel on average 1 hour and 31 minutes per day, which is the longest of all
the countries studied. In some countries (Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom, Sweden,
Latvia and Italy) people spend only slightly less time travelling than in the ­Netherlands.
The French and Bulgarians travel least (less than one hour per day), followed by
­Estonians (see also European Communities 2004a: 118). Travel time varies among other
things because of the variety in modes of transport and the quality of transport networks. For instance, at least half of the total travel time is spent in a car in the Northern
(­Finland, Sweden, Norway) and most Western European countries (Belgium, Germany,
the ­Netherlands) and also in Italy and Slovenia (Aliaga 2006). This coincides with the fact
that the number of car owners is higher in Northern and Western European countries
compared to Eastern Europe, which in turn is associated with economic prosperity (KiM
2007). In some Eastern European countries, the largest amount of travel time entails
travel on foot (Latvia, Poland and Lithuania) or by public transport (Estonia) (Aliaga
2006).
Specifically for the Netherlands, an earlier study found that the increased share of
working women, double-earner families (‘task-combiners’) and more leisure activities
generated more mobility and have contributed to a further concentration of mobility at
the busiest times of the day (Harms 2008). The oecd (2010b) also points to the fact that
road traffic has expanded faster than the road network in the Netherlands, which has
led to congestion. In addition, the oecd points out that the Dutch (road) infrastructure
is more constrained than in other countries because the Netherlands is very densely
­populated. Traffic congestion (and thus longer travelling time or shorter distances
­travelled in the same time) are more likely to occur in densely than in sparsely populated
26
time use in da ily life in the te ther l a nd s a nd fif teen other europe a n countr ies
countries. Finally, the Netherlands is well known for its cycling culture: the Dutch ride
their ­bicycles for about 15 minutes per day on average (not shown in figure). Belgians and
Germans cycle only 5 minutes per day on average, and the inhabitants of the other countries studied even less. Cycling is not a particularly fast mode of transport, which can
also contribute to longer travel times (except in densely populated areas).
Figure 2.5
Time spent travelling in the Netherlands and fifteen other European countries, population aged
20-74 years (in hours: minutes per day)
Northern
Europe
Western Europe
1:40
Southern
Europe
Eastern Europe
1:30
1:20
1:10
1:00
0:50
0:40
1:31
1:26
1:23
0:58
1:27
1:16
1:26
1:09
1:06
1:10
0:59
1:07
1:24
1:09
1:10
1:24
1:15
Belgium
Germany
France
United
Kingdom
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Slovenia
Poland
Bulgaria
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Spain
Italy
mean
0:20
Netherlands
0:30
0:10
0:00
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
When do people travel and why?
Besides time spent on travelling, time use data can also provide an insight into when
and why people travel. Figure 2.6 shows the daily travel rhythms in some countries, i.e.
the proportions of people who are travelling at different hours of the day. The data used
for the graphs do not include all the countries in the dataset, but only a subset of five
countries. The inclusion of more countries reduces the readability of the figures. The
countries chosen deviate from one another to some extent.
The figure shows that on weekdays, the heaviest traffic in the countries studied is concentrated between four o’clock in the afternoon and seven o’clock in the evening. In
Sweden and the Netherlands, people start travelling (home) at the end of the day earliest (between four and five o’clock in the afternoon), whereas this is about an hour to
two hours later in France and Italy. Only Poland has no clear travelling peak at the end
of the (working ) day, which coincides with the fact that the working day in Poland ends
27
a day w ith the dutch
earlier and gradually during the afternoon (see figure 3.1). In Italy, people continue to
travel until somewhat later in the evening.
Smaller but still distinct peaks occur around eight o’clock in the morning and around
lunchtime (European Communities 2004a). The ‘lunch peak’ in travelling time around
midday is most visible in Sweden, France and Italy. In the Southern countries, especially,
this can be characterized as a ‘siesta peak’. All in all, there are several smaller and larger
peaks, which together produce an uneven picture.
Figure 2.6
Proportion of people travelling during the day on a weekday in the Netherlands, France, Sweden,
Poland and Italy , population aged 20-74 years (in percentage of travellers per hour of the day)
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
Netherlands
France
Sweden
Poland
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
28
Italy
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
24:00
23:00
22:00
21:00
20:00
18:00
18:00
17:00
16:00
15:00
14:00
13:00
12:00
11:00
9:00
10:00
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
0
time use in da ily life in the te ther l a nd s a nd fif teen other europe a n countr ies
When considering the reason why people travel (commuting or free time) for the
Netherlands in particular (figure 2.7), it is interesting to find that the relatively high
morning peak is caused mainly by commuters, whereas the afternoon and early evening
rush hours are caused by both commuter and free-time travellers (Harms 2008). Freetime travel starts later in the morning than commuter traffic, and is mainly concentrated
in the afternoon hours. As the day passes, people travelling for both kinds of purpose
are travelling at the same time, and together cause the busy afternoon peak. This pattern
also occurs in other countries (not shown in figure).
Figure 2.7
Proportion of people travelling during the day on a weekday in the Netherlands divided into commuters and free-time travel, population aged 20-74 years (in percentage of travellers per hour of the day)
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
commuting
free-time travel
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
24:00
23:00
22:00
21:00
20:00
18:00
18:00
17:00
16:00
15:00
14:00
13:00
12:00
11:00
10:00
9:00
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
0
total
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
29
a day w ith the dutch
3 Time use and gender differences
3.1
He does, she does
Gender is still one of the major factors underlying differences in time use, something
which has been highlighted in many studies (e.g. Gershuny and Sullivan 2003; Aliaga 2006;
Hook 2010). In this chapter, the time use of men and women in the Netherlands is compared with that in fifteen other European countries. We focus on a few aspects of time use
in daily life, namely paid work (including the timing of paid work), household tasks and
childcare. In contrast to the previous chapter, not all figures are presented for the standard
population aged 20-74 years; instead, the (age) group considered depends on the topic. For
paid work the focus is on the ‘usual working-age population’ aged between 20 and 65 years.
Household tasks do relate to the population aged 20-74 years, whereas the figures on childcare time are limited to women and men with children up to the age of 18. Since the focus
is on gender differences, all figures are presented for men and women separately.
3.2 Paid work
It is well known that in general men engage more in paid work, i.e. have higher participation rates and longer working weeks, than women. Table 3.1 shows that of the population
aged 20-64 years in the countries studied, 68% of men are engaged in paid work on a given
weekday during the year. The figure among women is less, at 50%. Also, men are more
likely to work at the weekend than women.
On a given weekday, the proportion of women that engages in paid work varies between
40-44% in the Netherlands, Belgium and the Southern European countries up to 55-60% in
the Nordic and Eastern European countries. As noted in the previous chapter, time use data
provide quite a different picture from official labour statistics in which people are categorized as workers if they are engaged in paid work for at least one hour per week. A striking
finding for Dutch women, in particular, is that they drop from highest in rank in formal
participation to (almost) the lowest in terms of time use. The working hours of the Dutch
women who participate on a given weekday is 6 hours and 12 minutes on average, which is
the least of all the countries studied. Swedish, Finnish and women from Eastern European,
in particular, work longer hours. Their working day averages 7-8 hours, which is between
1.5 and almost 2 hours longer per day than is the case for women in the Netherlands.
The differences in working hours for men are less pronounced than for women.
Nevertheless, Dutch men aged 20-64 years, too, work relatively short hours: 7 hours and
50 minutes on average on a typical working day in the week. This corresponds with the
short working hours model found in the Netherlands (Lee 2007; Sayer and Gornick 2011).
Men’s working hours are only slightly longer in neighbouring countries such as Belgium,
Germany and France. In the other countries, working men work (far) more than 8 hours on
30
time use a nd gender differ ences
weekdays. Even in the Eastern European countries, where men and women usually work
full-time, men still work longer hours than women.
Both Dutch men and women of working time age (20-64 years) spend relatively little time
on paid work, then. How can this be explained? Is this the ‘rich country’ effect or the ‘postindustrial’ time use pattern, characterized by decreasing work hours and a social norm for
leisure that is posited to occur in rich countries (Gershuny 2000; Burda et al. 2007; Van der
Lippe et al. 2010)? While this may be part of the explanation, in other rich countries, such
as Norway, both men and women work longer hours than in the Netherlands. However,
the Nordic countries have a regime type with high employment levels, whereas the
Netherlands shows more similarity in participation (in terms of time use) with other countries with a conservative-corporatist regime type (Belgium, Germany and France). In those
countries women work considerably less than men (prevalence of the male breadwinner
model) but men’s involvement in paid work is also not high compared to men in other
countries. In addition, for Dutch women, especially, part-time working is an important part
of the explanation: part-time work is both ­institutionally and culturally embedded in Dutch
society, and has long been promoted by the government (Portegijs et al. 2008). Women
in the Netherlands much more often work part-time than women in other countries:
75% of working women in the Netherlands work fewer than 35 hours per week. Also, parttime work is common both among women with and without children in the Netherlands
(Portegijs et al. 2008).
This part-time work culture is not so prevalent in other countries. Working part-time is
common practice in other conservative-corporatist countries and social-democratic countries, but mainly among mothers with young children. In Eastern and Southern Europe,
especially, women are much more likely to be employed full-time or not be in work at all.
Part-time work is almost non-existent in these countries (Van der Lippe and Van Dijk 2002).
It is however common for women in Southern Europe to (temporarily) stop working once
they have children (Lewis et al. 2008; oecd 2011).
In addition, in countries where attitudes towards women’s employment are more in line
with the traditional gender division of labour, women spend less time on paid work.
The Nordic countries are considered the most egalitarian, followed by the Western welfare
states (Esping-Andersen 2009). In the Eastern European countries, despite the egalitarian model of paid work (employment was guaranteed during the Communist era for both
men and women) people appear to have rather traditional views and in some countries
these views actually seem to be becoming more traditional. It is therefore also possible for
traditional gender attitudes and high rates of female employment to occur together (Tread
and Widmer 2000; Siemienska 2000; Haas et al. 2006). This also seems to be the case, albeit to a lesser extent, in the Southern European countries; here, women spend about the
same amount of time on paid work as women in Western European countries, despite the
dominant traditionally masculine norm of the male as the breadwinner in those countries.
The context of economic opportunities (economic necessity to work) thus also plays a role
when interpreting the influence of gender norms on women’s employment.
31
France
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
70
25
72
25
56
17
72
19
57
16
64
23
51
16
7:57 8:19 8:17
4:51 5:41 5:34
67
24
50
15
7:50 7:54 7:56 7:54 8:24
4:13 5:49 5:14 5:49 6:25
63
17
49
15
Norway
6:41 7:22 7:15
5:25 5:41 5:06
60
17
69
15
45
11
Sweden
3:40 3:55 3:31
Finland
6:12 6:43 6:40 6:51 6:51
4:63 5:29 4:34 5:16 5:25
43
11
44
11
3:03 2:56 3:04 3:26 3:39
United Kingdom
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
time use participants
women
weekday
weekend day
men
weekday
weekend day
% participants
women
weekday
weekend day
men
weekday
weekend day
time use
Latvia
Poland
Slovenia
64
33
45
20
58
22
47
13
69
29
56
23
77
27
62
22
73
33
63
28
8:14 8:12 8:24 8:32 8:47 8:35
6:35 6:10 7:59 7:34 7:21 7:05
7:11 6:53 8:00 7:46 8:05 7:48
5:38 4:54 7:34 6:17 6:20 6:00
64
26
53
17
3:36 3:24 3:27 4:08 4:38 4:32
Bulgaria
Eastern Europe
Estonia
Northern Europe
Southern Europe
8:37
6:53
6:58
6:20
71
24
43
15
3:39
Spain
Western Europe
8:20
6:44
6:46
6:03
71
30
39
15
3:28
Italy
32
Lithuania
50
17
 
68
24
 
 
 
7:07
5:39
 
8:15
6:14
3:37
mean
Table 3.1
Time spent on paid work, percentages of participants and time spent on paid work by participants, by sex and weekday in the Netherlands and fifteen other
European countries, population aged 20-64 years (in hours: minutes per day)
a day w ith the dutch
time use a nd gender differ ences
3.2.2The timing of paid work by women and men
How do women and men organize their work time into everyday living routines?
­Figure 3.1 shows the percentage of men and women aged 20-64 years who performed
paid work on a weekday in a selection of five countries. Several findings emerge from
the figure. First, in general paid work is mainly performed during regular working hours
on the ‘traditional workday’, between 8.00 am and 6.00 pm for both men and women.
People in Poland start their working day the earliest (between 6 and 8 o’clock in the
morning) and finish earlier than in the other countries considered here. They also interrupt their working day much less for lunch than elsewhere. The Swedish also start quite
early and, together with the Dutch, are among the first to stop working (between 5 and
6 o’clock in the afternoon). In France, and especially in Spain, it is more common to work
during the early evening and to interrupt the working day for lunch (and a siesta). Next,
considering gender differences in the timing of paid work, we see that the involvement
in paid work is higher for men than for women at any time of the day. In the afternoon,
fewer people are at work than in the morning, and this applies especially for women.
However, within the countries, the patterns for women and men are rather similar.
Figure 3.1
Proportion of people spending time at paid work during the day by sex on a weekday in the
­Netherlands, France, Sweden, Poland and Spain, population aged 20-64 years (in percentages per
hour of the day)
Men
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Netherlands
France
Sweden
Poland
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
12:00
11:00
9:00
10:00
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
12:00
11:00
9:00
10:00
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
0
Spain
33
a day w ith the dutch
Figure 3.1 (continued)
Women
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Netherlands
France
Sweden
Poland
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
12:00
11:00
10:00
9:00
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
3:00
2:00
1:00
12:00
11:00
9:00
10:00
8:00
7:00
6:00
5:00
4:00
0
Spain
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
3.3 Household tasks
The total amount of time devoted to household tasks in the sixteen European countries
covered in this study averages 3 hours and 3 minutes per day. Women put in almost
4 hours per day (3 hours 56 minutes), whereas men put in only slightly more than two
hours per day (2 hours 4 minutes). In general, women aged 20 to 74 years thus spend
much more time on housework than men.
Women in the Netherlands spend about the same amount of time on household tasks
as women in Finland (a little less than three and a half hours on an average day). Only
Norwegian and Swedish women spend less time on housework (a little over three hours).
The highest figures are found in Southern and Eastern Europe (with the exception of
Latvia); here, women spend between four and five hours per day on household tasks.
Belgian, German and French women and women form the United Kingdom score about
average.
For men, the lowest time involvement in household tasks is found in Italy and Spain
(less than an hour and a half per day), followed by men in Latvia. Dutch men come next,
with a time investment in household tasks of a little less than two hours per day. This
is close to the average among men in the countries studied and comparable with men
in Norway, Finland and the uk. The time input of Swedish men in household tasks is
somewhat higher and comparable with that of men in Western European countries such
34
time use a nd gender differ ences
as Belgium, Germany and France. Men in Eastern Europe show a divers picture; men in
Bulgaria, Slovenia and Estonia put in more time than average, men in Latvia less and
men in Poland and Lithuania find themselves somewhere in the middle.
Looking at the proportion of time devoted to the household by men and women, in
Spain and Italy, and to a lesser extent in some Eastern European countries, women
spend a lot of time on household tasks and men little. In the Netherlands, both women
and men spend little time on housework. The Netherlands scores around the average in terms of the relative amounts of household time for men and women: women
­account for two-thirds of the household time (3 hours 27 minutes), men one third (1 hour
57 minutes). The division of housework is most unequal in Italy, followed by Spain
and the Eastern European countries. In those countries, women spend considerably
more time and men considerably less on household activities than their counterparts
in Western Europe. In the Nordic countries especially, the division is more equal, with
women accounting for about 60% of household time, which is also more equal than in
the Netherlands (because Nordic women do less than Dutch women and Nordic men do
more than Dutch men).
Unlike paid work, less consistent regime effects are generally found for the division of
household work between women and men (Gershuny and Sullivan 2003). When scholars
do find (small) regime effects on the gender division of household tasks, namely men
overall spend more time on these tasks in countries where women’s employment is
higher (Geist 2005; Van der Lippe et al. 2010; Hook 2006, 2010) it is also suggested that
gender norms are an important factor here: in countries where attitudes are more in favour of the traditional gender division of labour (with men performing the traditionally
masculine role of breadwinning and women of care giving) , men perform less housework and women more (Fuwa 2004). This is the case in Spain and Italy, for example, but
also in Eastern Europe (Gershuny 2000; Pascall and Lewis 2004; Bloemen et al. 2008;
Sevilla-Sanz et al. 2010). In addition, in countries where the traditionally masculine role
of breadwinning carries high social status, men are also found to do less housework
(Thébaud 2010).
Despite the variation in time spent on household tasks between women and men in
different countries, the vast majority of people (90%) perform some household chores
on a daily basis. As expected, men in the Southern countries, in particular, show lower
participation rates then elsewhere (66-69%), which is in line with the foregoing. The
highest participation by men in household time is found in the Netherlands, Norway and
Sweden. Since participation rates are so high (almost everybody does some household
work every day), the time use by participants is not presented separately in table 3.2.
35
Netherlands
94
97
91
2:45
3:27
1:57
Belgium
93
96
89
3:04
3:47
2:19
Germany
92
97
87
3:02
3:49
2:13
France
88
97
80
3:14
4:07
2:15
United Kingdom
92
97
86
2:57
3:42
2:06
Norway
95
98
91
2:39
3:12
2:05
Sweden
94
98
90
2:45
3:13
2:13
94
98
88
2:49
3:28
2:05
Finland
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
Slovenia
89
97
81
3:29
4:27
2:26
a France excl. walking the dog, Finland and Norway excl. tending domestic animals.
% participants
women
men
time use
women
men
Poland
92
98
85
3:10
4:06
2:07
88
96
78
3:39
4:39
2:30
Bulgaria
Eastern Europe
92
98
84
3:26
4:18
2:23
Estonia
Northern Europe
Latvia
85
95
75
2:46
3:34
1:46
90
98
80
3:07
4:04
2:02
Southern Europe
82
95
69
2:57
4:25
1:25
Spain
Western Europe
81
96
66
3:10
4:53
1:24
Italy
36
Lithuania
Table 3.2
Time spent on household tasksa and percentages of participants by sex in the Netherlands and fifteen ­European comparison countries, population aged
20-74 years (in hours: minutes per day)
90
97
83
3:03
3:56
2:04
mean
a day w ith the dutch
time use a nd gender differ ences
3.4 Childcare
Parents with a youngest child aged 0-18 years allocate an average of 55 minutes per day
on childcare (physical care, supervision of child and teaching, reading, talking with a
child) (table 3.3). Of course, basic care for young children is much more time-intensive
than care for older children, and this 55 minutes is an average. In all countries studied,
mothers devote more time to the care for children than fathers (Sayer and Gornick 2011).
Time spent on children by mothers averages 1 hour and 15 minutes on any given day,
whereas fathers’ childcare time is only about half an hour.
Comparing mothers in different countries, mothers in the Netherlands (1 hour 18 minutes per day) devote more time to their children than mothers in Belgium and France,
but less than mothers in Southern Europe. Dutch mothers thus score around the average
in terms of the amount of time they devote to childcare. Dutch fathers spend more time
caring for their children than fathers in other countries, even slightly more than fathers
in Norway and Sweden (although the difference is small). Belgian and French fathers
score lower in this regard, followed by German fathers. Fathers in the Baltic states,
Bulgaria and the Southern European countries, in particular, spend substantially less
time on childcare, not only compared to mothers, but also compared to fathers in other
countries.
Total childcare time is highest among Dutch parents, together with parents in the
Northern European countries, Poland and Spain. In addition, the division between parents is most equal among Dutch and Scandinavian parents (mothers’ share is 60-65%,
fathers 35-40%) (Margherita et al. 2009). Childcare is less equally divided in Belgium,
France and Germany (mothers account for about 75%). As with household time, the gender differences are largest in Eastern and Southern Europe. In general, the ­division of
childcare (and also household work) is more equal in countries where women’s ­labour
market involvement is higher, where the prevailing gender norms are egalitarian and
in countries that have policies explicitly aimed at increasing men’s involvement in
childrearing and an equal division of unpaid work in general (Sayer et al. 2004; Hook
2006, 2010). In terms of regime types, the division of childcare time is most equal in the
Nordic social-democratic countries, less equal in the conservative-corporatist Western
European countries and least equal in the South. In Southern Europe, especially, the
care system is characterized as ‘familiastic’, and formal childcare facilities and opportunities for part-time work are limited (Bettio and Plantenga 2004; Del Boca et al. 2008).
Combined with gender role expectations (‘caring’ is primarily the mother’s responsibility and men’s normative responsibility is breadwinning), this implies that women take
care of the home and children and limits men’s involvement in childcare (Sayer et al.
2004; Hook 2006, 2010). Somewhat atypical are Dutch fathers, who spend more time on
childcare compared with fathers in neighbouring conservative-corporatist countries
such as France, Belgium and Germany, and also compared to the United Kingdom (also
see Bianchi et al. 2006; Sayer and Gornick 2011).
37
Netherlands
Germany
1:37
1:53
1:10
60
71
47
0:58
1:20
0:33
France
1:32
1:44
1:06
51
65
35
0:47
1:08
0:23
United Kingdom
1:43
1:57
1:16  
61
71
48
1:02
1:23
0:37
1:39
1:52
1:21
63
74
52
1:03
1:22
0:43
Norway
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
1:24
1:37
1:00
time use participants
1:32
women
1:38
men
1:23
0:42
0:59
0:22
50
61
38
1:04
1:18
0:49
Belgium
70
79
59
% participants
women
men
time use
women
men
Sweden
1:28
1:39
1:12
72
79
64
1:03
1:19
0:46
Finland
1:44
1:58
1:17  
61
70
48
1:03
1:23
0:37
Slovenia
1:46
2:00
1:19
48
61
35
0:51
1:13
0:28
Poland
2:02
2:23
1:29
56
67
44
1:08
1:35
0:39
1:45
2:00
1:10
39
51
25
0:41
1:01
0:18
Bulgaria
Eastern Europe
1:41
1:57
1:03
55
68
38
0:56
1:20
0:24
Estonia
Northern Europe
Latvia
1:23
1:31
0:56
42
59
28
0:35
0:53
0:12
1:37
1:50
1:03  
43
55
28
0:41
1:00
0:18
Southern Europe
1:57
2:15
1:27
56
68
43
1:05
1:31
0:37
Spain
Western Europe
1:39
1:55
1:14  
62
76
48
1:02
1:28
0:35
Italy
38
Lithuania
Table 3.3
Time spent caring for children, percentages of participants and time spent caring for children by participants by sex in the Netherlands and fifteen other
European countries, parents with children aged 0-17 years (in hours: minutes per day)
1:39
1:53
1:12
56
67
43
0:55
1:15
0:31
mean
a day w ith the dutch
time use a nd gender differ ences
Although father’s participation rate in childcare is lower than that of mothers in all
countries, it is highest for fathers in Sweden (64%) followed by the Netherlands (59%).
In all countries, women are not only more likely to engage in care for children than
men (in percentages of participants), but also spend more time doing so (time use by
participants) than men. Among those involved in childcare, however, childcare time is
highest among Dutch fathers. When they are involved (which they are relatively often),
therefore, Dutch fathers spent most time with their children compared to fathers in the
other countries.
3.5 Total workload for women and men (the combination of obligations)
Chapter 2 showed that total workload (adding up time spent on study, paid work,
household tasks and childcare) is lowest in the Netherlands and Belgium and highest
in Slovenia and the Baltic states (figure 2.3). There, no distinction was made between
women and men. Figure 3.2 shows the total workload for women and men separately.
Obligatory time is often higher for women than for men, or is about equal. An exception
is found for the Netherlands: here women have a slightly lower total workload than men
(also see Dekker and Ederveen 2005; Torres et al. 2007). Dutch women are thus slightly
less busy with obligatory tasks in daily life compared to Dutch men, although the difference is small. In the United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway, the total workload is roughly
equal between the sexes. In the remaining countries, women’s total workload exceeds
that of men. Women in Slovenia, the Baltic states, Bulgaria and Italy have particularly
high total workloads (European Communities 2004; Torres et al. 2007). The total workload for women in these countries reaches nine hours per day. Men in these countries
are also relatively busy, albeit to a lesser extent then women.
The differences in total workload between women and men is thus low or absent in
the Nordic countries and in the Netherlands. A gender gap is present to some extent
in Belgium, France and Finland. Here, women are occupied for approximately half an
hour longer per day with obligatory tasks than men. The largest gender difference in
total workload occurs in Italy and Bulgaria, where women are busier with their tasks
for over 1 hour and 15 minutes per day than men (also see Anxo et al. 2007; Bloemen
et al. 2008). What causes the differences in total workload for men and women across
countries? Burda et al. (2007) found that in rich countries men and women do about the
same amount of total work. They conclude that economic development is highly positively correlated with gender equality in the amount of total work. Their explanation
is that the relatively higher wages encourage women to spend more time on paid work
and less on household tasks. Others have also found that both women and men do less
housework in countries with a high level of economic propensity (Knudsen and Wærness
2008). Differences in total workload are also related to the macro-factors mentioned
earlier, which also influence (the division) of paid work and care tasks: the type of welfare state and social norms prevailing in countries. In the Nordic countries, for instance,
not only is women’s employment promoted, but also the sharing of household work and
childcare between men and women (Geist 2005; Hook 2010). Here, women spend more
39
a day w ith the dutch
time on paid work and less on household tasks compared to countries where policies
and the social norms favour traditional gender roles and views about the labour market
favour men. By contrast, in Southern Europe and in some Eastern European countries,
household work and childcare are deeply gendered and women have the main responsibility for care tasks regardless of their employment status. Here, there is hardly any
policies that are supportive of men’s family work nor any (normative) pressure on men to
increase their household activities (Pascall and Lewis 2004; Bloemen et al. 2008. The result is a high total workload for women in those countries, mainly caused by household
work and childcare (in general, the division of household time between men and women
is less equal than the division of paid work).
Figure 3.2
Time spent on paid work, household tasksa and caring for children by sex in the Netherlands and
fifteen other European countries, population aged 20-64 years (in hours: minutes per day)
Northern
Europe
Western Europe
9:00
0:30
8:00
0:32
7:00
0:31
0:22 0:25
0:39
2:03
2:08
3:39
3:35
0:17
2:00
0:13
0:08
2:11 3:20
4:23
4:08
2:16
2:06
2:40
2:21
4:41
4:19
3:55
3:44
1:35
0:13
3:48 1:48
2:14 4:02
1:18
4:13
4:01
1:13
4:42
2:44
4:39
4:27
2:57
3:18
4:13
2:56
3:02
4:53
4:21
4:16
4:01
2:32
3:02
5:26
4:04
4:56
5:12
4:51
4:01
3:02
2:27
2:13
0:10 0:11 0:18 0:13 0:15 0:16 0:17 0:17 0:10 0:09 0:17 0:13 0:21 0:15 0:15 0:19 0:21 0:17 0:16 0:16 0:08 0:03 0:08 0:07 0:14 0:10 0:13 0:10 0:23 0:21 0:17 0:12
paid work
household
childcare
a France excl. walking the dog, Finland and Norway excl. tending domestic animals.
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
Italy
Spain
Lithuania
Latvia
Estonia
Bulgaria
Poland
Slovenia
Finland
Sweden
France
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m w m
study
40
0:33
0:08 0:35
0:05
3:21
2:00
0:00
1:58 4:15
0:41 0:11
0:44
2:19
3:19
3:03
3:32
0:25
0:26
0:12
2:05
1:58
3:04
3:56
3:00
1:00
1:54
Norway
4:00
0:30 0:10
2:03
1:52
5:00
0:10
0:33 0:18
0:10 0:37 0:14
0:18
0:33 0:12
0:39
United
Kingdom
6:00
Southern
Europe
Eastern Europe
s a me a mount of time, differ ent time use pat ter ns?
4 Same amount of time, different time use patterns?
4.1 Time use patterns across countries considered simultaneously
So far, time use for the population in sixteen European countries has been considered in
this study. For some aspects of daily life, gender differences in time use are highlighted.
Some patterns might have become quite clear. For instance, the Netherlands shows some
resemblance in terms of time use with neighbouring countries like Belgium and Germany (little time spent on paid work and a relatively large amount of free time). There also
seems to be some overlap with the Nordic countries (relatively little time spent on the
household and a lot of time for childcare), although the gender differences are smaller in
Northern Europe and time spent on paid work by both men and women is considerably
higher there compared to the Netherlands.
The central question addressed in this chapter is to what extent countries show resemblances in their total time use patterns. Since the main focus of this study is on the
Netherlands, we are particularly interested in which countries share correspondences
with Dutch time use. So far, only separate time use categories have been considered, resulting in a somewhat fragmented picture. To compare the time use patterns across the
sixteen countries simultaneously, however, is not easily done based on the analysis of
mean durations per time use category. Therefore, in order to obtain a complete picture,
the time use data from the Netherlands and the fifteen other European countries were
subjected to a categorical principal component analysis (Catpc a) (Linting 2007).2
The technique is used in typology research, for instance (Vrooman 2009). Here, the
analysis allows the simultaneous comparison of the time use on different activities in
the sixteen countries considered, and presents the relationships visually. The goal of
the analysis is to explore whether meaningful clusters of countries emerge from the
data if we ‘let the data speak’. Catpc a provides a tool for the interpretation; groups or
clusters are suggested by the data, but are not defined a priori or confirmed afterwards.
Countries that share many features in time use will be more or less positioned close to
each other and to the time use category or categories on which a good deal of time is
spent, whereas countries and categories with little in common will be positioned further
apart. In a Catpc a analysis, no distributional assumptions about the variables are made.
The goal of the analysis in this chapter is explorative. The aim is not to test any regime
effects on patterns of time use or any other form of multivariate hypothesis testing.
In other words: the focus is not on theoretical ideal types of groups of countries with
respect to time use, but on empirically based groups or clusters of countries. First of all,
the data do not allow such analysis. Secondly, earlier research on patterns of time use
in countries according to regime type has found mixed evidence at best; whereas some
find some relationship between regime type and aspects of daily time use (for instance
paid work, household tasks or childcare), others claim that ‘time use patterns clearly cut
41
a day w ith the dutch
across regime types’ (Torres et al. 2007: 40) or that a different typology emerges when
time use patterns are considered (Gershuny 2008). Since the exact influence of various
institutional, cultural and circumstantial factors (and the theoretical processes behind
this influence) on full time use patterns is still not well understood, we performed an
explorative analysis to see whether clusters of countries arise from the data. If so, this
indicates whether some typologies or merely geographical position emerge as the main
classifying factor, or whether no classification is possible at all.
In order to obtain the glimmer of an interpretation of the results, we will briefly discuss
the results in the light of the regime type typology developed by Esping-Andersen (1990,
1999). This is the best known and most frequently used typology in macro-level research
to study all kinds of topics (Van der Lippe and Van Dijk 2002). Other typologies that have
been constructed focus on or take into account other factors (such as care regimes and
gender regimes). These do not necessarily parallel welfare regime type, but can generally be considered to be part of an ongoing discussion of refinements and additions to
Esping-Andersen’s typology (Arts and Gelissen 2010). It therefore seems to offer the most
logical framework for the interpretation of the results found.
In the analysis, countries are positioned based on the average duration of six activities
(viz. personal care, study, household tasks, childcare, free time and travelling). These are
the main categories of time use that are distinguished in this and other time use studies. The results are shown and discussed first for the whole population (aged 20-74 years)
and then separately for men and women. Gender differences receive a lot of attention
as a source of inequality in time use. This study confirms that there are persistent differences in the time use of women and men. These differences are a motive to carry out the
Catpc a analysis separately for women and men.
4.2 An analysis of the time use patterns of the population in sixteen European
countries
Figure 4.1 shows the result of the analysis for the population aged 20-74 years (women
and men together) in the sixteen countries. The figure reveals that countries can be distinguished based on the time spent on paid work. In countries above the horizontal axis
(Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden) a good deal of time is spent
on paid work. On the opposite site, beneath the axis, a number of countries are situated
where people devote relatively little time to paid work. These are the Netherlands and
Belgium in particular, but also Germany, Bulgaria, Italy and France. Another distinction
can be made between the countries on the left side of the vertical axis, where a relatively
large amount of time is spent on childcare, people generally have more free time and
more time goes to travelling and study and less to personal care and household tasks,
and those on the right side of the vertical axis, in particular, where the opposite is true: a
relatively large amount of time is devoted to household/personal care goes together with
lesser amounts of free time and time for childcare, travel and study. These countries are
positioned opposite each other in figure 4.1.
42
s a me a mount of time, differ ent time use pat ter ns?
The analysis reveals that some countries are grouped more or less together. Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia comprise a ‘time use’ group that is characterized by a
lot of time devoted to paid work and a scarce amount of free time. Next, time use in
Sweden and Norway (high time commitments to both paid work and childcare) shows
some similarity with that in Finland and the United Kingdom, although in the latter two
countries less time is devoted to paid work. The Netherlands is situated together with
Germany and Belgium: in these countries little time for paid work goes together with a
relatively large amount of time for the care for children and free time. The mean duration of personal care activities and (even more) household tasks is relatively low here.
Figure 4.1
Categorical Principal Components Analysis (Catp c a): resemblance in time use pattern in sixteen
­European countries, population 20-74 years
2.5
2.0
1.5
Latvia
Slovenia
Norway
0.5
Lithuania
paid work
Sweden
1.0
Estonia
United Kingdom
childcare
Finland
study
travel
household
Poland
free time
Spain
personal care
0.0
−0.5
Germany
Italy
Bulgaria
France
−1.0
Netherlands
Belgium
−1.5
−2.0
−2.5
−2.5
−2.0
−1.5
−1.0
−0.5
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
43
a day w ith the dutch
So far, countries tend to be organised roughly by geographical regions. This is however
not the case for the remaining countries. For instance, France shows more similarity
with Bulgaria in terms of time use than with the other Western European countries.
Typical for France and Bulgaria is the long mean duration of household tasks and personal care3. The figure also shows that the two Southern European countries do not tend
to group strongly. Instead, Spain is positioned close to Poland. Both Spain and Poland
are positioned close to the origin in the figure. Further analysis reveals that this is because they score roughly in the medium range on all the time use categories considered.
Finally, Italy is situated between the Western European countries and Spain. Italy does
not clearly group with Spain, because in Italy more time is spent on household tasks and
personal care and less on paid work, compared to Spain.
What do the results tell us in terms of the relationship between time use and regime
types? Although there is the suggestion of some clustering between some countries, the
time use patterns do not seem to follow the welfare regime typology very closely. At best
partial support for a relationship between regime type and time use is found , which
is in line with earlier research in which some aspects of daily time use were considered
(i.e. paid work, household tasks and free time) (Gershuny and Sulivan 2003; Gershuny
2008; Van der Lippe et al. 2010). For instance, only two of the Nordic social-democratic
countries form a clear group in terms of time use by the population, but Finland is a bit
of an outlier. The United Kingdom, which is generally considered a liberal regime type,
tends more in the direction of the social-democratic Nordic countries rather than being a distinct type. It is however important to note that the uk is the only country with
liberal regime traits in our data (and thus has no opportunity to cluster with other countries with a liberal regime). In addition, the uk is sometimes considered not to be a pure
case of the liberal regime type (Vrooman 2009), so this result should be interpreted with
caution.
Further, a conservative-corporatist time use group can be partly recognized in figure 4.1
and comprises Germany and Belgium as well as the Netherlands. The Netherlands is thus
situated between the corporatist countries Belgium and Germany, whereas it is usually
considered to be a ‘hybrid’ type, between the social-democratic and conservative-corporatist regime types. The analysis reveals that in terms of time use, the Netherlands shows
more resemblance to the conservative-corporatist countries than to the social-democratic countries. In addition, France is a clear outlier from the conservative-corporatist
type: it is situated a long way from the other conservative-corporatist countries in the
graph and instead is situated near Bulgaria and the Southern European countries.
Turning to the Eastern European countries that are part of this study, the analysis shows
that they cannot be uniformly classified as a ‘one time use’ regime type. Slovenia and the
Baltic states seem to form a distinct group of their own, whereas Poland and Bulgaria
are both situated elsewhere in the graph. This is in line with other research in which the
Eastern European countries are found to be a mixed group. For instance, Poland is moving towards a more market-conforming, liberal model (Cook 2010), which might explain
44
s a me a mount of time, differ ent time use pat ter ns?
why Poland is positioned closer to the uk in the graph. As mentioned earlier, Italy does
not clearly group with Spain, so no Southern European time use group emerges from the
analysis.
All in all, we found some contours of the three ideal regime types when analysing time
use patterns cross-nationally, but Finland, the uk and France do not fit in completely
where they would be expected. No clear Eastern or Southern European regime type can
be distinguished. This suggests that it would be going too far to state that time use cuts
across regime types, but there is also no one-to-one relationship. On the one hand, it
should be kept in mind that personal care, study, travel and to a certain extent also free
time are not directly related to any policy, care or gender regime typology. On the other
hand, these aspects of time use are also part of daily life and are therefore important to
consider when analysing time use patterns cross-nationally.
4.3 Women’s time use pattern cross-nationally
Which countries show similarity or are very dissimilar with respect to the time use
of women aged 20-74 years? At first glance, the results of the Catpc a analysis for
women only show a moderate resemblance to the results for the population as a whole
(­figure 4.1, although in figure 4.2 the picture is vertically mirrored). However, in some
aspects the results do differ.
As in the previous analysis, a distinction is apparent between countries where (in this
case) women spend a lot of time on paid work and countries where women spend little
time on paid work. Likewise, there is a distinction between countries where women
have a relatively large amount of free time and spend a lot of time on childcare, travelling and studying on the one hand, and countries where more time is devoted to
household tasks and personal care on the other hand.
Considering the countries and their positions, the analysis of women’s time use shows
that the Nordic countries with their social-democratic regimes are closer together (compared to the analysis for the entire population) and that the ‘group’ now also includes
Finland: women in the Northern European countries spend more time on paid work,
childcare, travelling and study than women elsewhere. Also, they have a rather large
amount of free time, but they spend less time on household tasks and personal care.
The United Kingdom remains more or less in the same position, but because Finland has
moved towards Sweden and Norway, the uk is now positioned more clearly between the
Northern and Western-European countries.
The Western European trio (the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) is also clearly visible for women. The only difference is that the Netherlands is now positioned below
Belgium, indicating that Dutch women score lower on time allocated to paid work than
women in Belgium. France is an outlier, including when only women are considered,
and does not group with the other Western European countries. However, France is
45
a day w ith the dutch
now ­closer to the Southern European countries, whereas it was closer to Bulgaria in
the general analysis. The time use of French women thus shows most resemblance to
that of women in Southern Europe than in the general analysis based on the time use
of both women and men. In general, the time use pattern of women in these countries
is characterized by a lot of time spent on household tasks and relatively little time on
paid work (though not as little as in the Netherlands and Belgium, for instance). As in the
general analysis, there seems to be a distinct time use pattern for women in some of the
Eastern European countries. Poland is again an outlier (close to the origin) as is Bulgaria.
Bulgarian women, unlike women in the other Eastern European countries, spend more
time on household tasks and personal care (but less on childcare, for instance; see
­t able 3.3).
Figure 4.2
Categorical Principal Components Analysis (Catp c a): resemblance in time use pattern of women in
sixteen European countries, women aged 20-74 years
2.5
2.0
Estonia
1.5
Lithuania
Slovenia
paid work
1.0
Norway
Latvia
Sweden
0.5
childcare Finland
Bulgaria
household
0.0
study
Poland
Spain
France
−0.5
travel
United Kingdom
free time
personal care
Germany
−1.0
Italy
Belgium
−1.5
Netherlands
−2.0
−2.5
−2.5
−2.0
−1.5
−1.0
−0.5
0.0
0.5
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
46
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
s a me a mount of time, differ ent time use pat ter ns?
For women, the position of the Nordic countries parallels Esping-Andersen’s socialdemocratic regime cluster more closely than was the case in the general analysis, and
this group has moreover grown to include the uk. The conservative-corporatist group
also remains the same as in figure 4.1 (Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands). France,
Italy and Spain seem to form a tentative Southern type, so for women there appear to
be more grounds (or at least more than for the population as a whole) for speaking of
a Southern or Mediterranean group in terms of time use. Since the Southern countries
are surrounded by France on one side and the Western European countries on the other,
the question remains of whether women’s time use pattern can or should be characterized as a distinct type or a subtype of the conservative-corporatist type. Some Eastern
European countries continue to group mainly with each other, including when only
women’s time use is considered (Slovenia and the Baltic states); this group does not include Poland and Bulgaria.
4.4 Men’s time use pattern cross-nationally
The Catpc a analysis performed on the time use patterns for men only (figure 4.3) reveals
a somewhat different picture compared to that for men and women together (figure 4.1)
and women only (figure 4.2). Contrary to the case for Dutch women, the time use of
Dutch men shows little resemblance to that of men from neighbouring conservativecorporatist countries such as Belgium and Germany. The time use of Dutch men thus
does not fit within the German-Belgium group. Instead, the time use pattern of Dutch
men is better classified along with men in the social-democratic Nordic countries
(Sweden, Norway) and the uk, rather than with men in the Western European conservative-corporatist countries. This can be explained mainly by the relatively large amount of
time that Dutch men spend on childcare and travelling and their relatively large amount
of free time.
A further finding is that Finland is positioned closer to Belgium and Germany in the
analysis where only the time use patterns of men are considered. Thus where Finnish
women seem to have more in common with women in other Northern European countries, Finnish men show more resemblance to men from Western Europe. This is the
opposite to what is found for the Netherlands. Slovenia is also oddly positioned in the
analysis for men only: it is no longer situated near the Baltic states, but is (like Finland)
also situated near Belgium and Germany. Whereas Slovenia was positioned near the
Baltic states before, and time use there was characterized by a lot of paid work, this
seems to be particularly true for Slovenian women but not so much for Slovenian men.
All in all, the group formed by Belgium, Germany, Finland and Slovenia forms a mix of
seemingly unrelated countries, at least in terms of regime type.
Another, though smaller, difference is that the two Southern European countries group
together more strongly in the case of the time use of men than was the case for women;
Italy and Spain are positioned closer to each other in figure 4.3 than in the previous
figures. The time use of men in those countries is characterized by a lot of paid work
47
a day w ith the dutch
(comparable with men in Latvia and Lithuania) and little time investment in household
tasks and personal care. Considering the images for women and men next to each other,
it appears that men in Southern Europe invest a relatively large amount of time in paid
work, whereas women in those countries put more time into household tasks and personal care. These particular and quite distinct time use patterns for men and women
mean that the Southern European countries do not really group together in the general
analysis. They are however positioned close(r) to each other in the separate analyses for
women and men.
Figure 4.3
Categorical Principal Components Analysis (Catp c a): resemblance in time use pattern of men in
­sixteen European countries, men aged 20-74 years
2.5
Latvia
2.0
Italy
1.5
Lithuania
Spain
1.0
paid work
0.5
personal care
travel
United Kingdom
Netherlands
0.0
Estonia
Sweden
study
childcare
Norway
−0.5
free time
Germany
Bulgaria
household
Finland
−1.0
France
Poland
Belgium
Slovenia
−1.5
−2.0
−2.5
−2.5
−2.0
−1.5
−1.0
−0.5
0.0
0.5
Source: Netherlands: scp (tbo’06/eu); other countries: he tus
48
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
s a me a mount of time, differ ent time use pat ter ns?
Dutch women have a Western European, Dutch men a Nordic time use pattern
Reviewing the images for Dutch women and men, it appears that on the one hand the
time use pattern of Dutch women shows more resemblance to that of women in the
Western European corporatist countries Belgium and Germany. The time use pattern of
Dutch men, on the other hand, shows more resemblance to that of men in the socialdemocratic Scandinavian countries Sweden and Norway.
The general picture of time use shows more similarity with the outcome for women than
with that for men. A simple explanation for this is that the time use of women is more
diverse than that of men. When the time use of women is incorporated in the analysis,
it dominates the Catpc a outcome. This does not mean that the results for men are less
reliable or accurate: the differences in men’s time use are simply smaller.
49
a day w ith the dutch
5 Concluding remarks
Dutch time use
This study showed that in general and at first glance, the distribution of time spent on
different activities does not differ markedly from one country to another. Europeans
in the countries that where part of this study spend their time in broadly the same way
and undertake certain activities for roughly comparable amounts of time. There is for
instance relatively little variation in the amount of time devoted to personal care in the
different countries studied and there is no country where people sleep for less than the
usual norm of eight hours.
This does not apply for all time use categories to the same extent, however, and despite
some cross-national consistencies in time use patterns, there are also considerable
­variations between the countries. One of the questions that lies at the heart of this study
is whether the Dutch have a distinct time use pattern. It appears that with the focus on
the Netherlands, particularly the difference with other countries in time spend at obligatory activities (study, paid work, household tasks and childcare) is quite substantial; the
Dutch spend, together with the Belgians, on average 50 minutes per day less on these
activities than elsewhere (6 hours 2 minutes per day in the Netherlands and Belgium
compared to 6 hours 50 minutes per day on average in the countries studies). This relatively low total workload can be mainly attributed to the little time investment that the
Dutch make in paid work (short-working hours and the part-time model, which is particularly characteristic for the Netherlands). In addition, the Dutch also devote slightly less
time than average to household tasks, at 2 hours 45 minutes per day. Besides paid work
and household tasks, the Dutch spend a relatively large amount of time travelling and
they have somewhat more free time than the average in the countries studied. However,
Norwegians, Belgians, Germans and Finns have slightly more free time, while people in
Eastern Europe, in particular, have less. Since some countries have even more free time
at their disposal, it goes too far to characterize as a leisure paradise, at least compared
to most other European countries studied. For other, more specific activities, the differences are sometimes no more than a few minutes per day. In those cases, it is partly up
to the reader to judge whether or not those differences are substantial and meaningful.
When gender differences are concerned, it appears that the Dutch score somewhere
between average and above average (more gender equality in time use than elsewhere).
For the division of household tasks, the difference between men and women is slightly
greater in the Netherlands than in the Scandinavian countries, but (much) smaller than
in Eastern and Southern Europe. The Netherlands scores around the average in terms
of the relative amounts of household time for men and women: women account for
two-thirds of the household time (3 hours 27 minutes per day), men one third (1 hour
57 minutes). In Spain and Italy, for example, women account for almost 80% of the time
spent on household tasks, with men accounting for just 20%. What is notable, is that
the Netherlands is the only country in which men’s total workload (study, paid work
50
concluding rem a r k s
and care tasks) exceeds that of women, although the difference is very small. In other
countries (the United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway) the total workload of women and
men is about equal. In the remaining countries, women’s total workload exceeds that of
men. Women might be slightly busier than men, but in some countries women’s total
workload exceeds that of men with around or even with more than an hour per day (for
instance in some Eastern European countries and in Italy). Notable is that Dutch fathers
spent more time on their children than fathers in other countries, even more than
Scandinavian fathers. All in all, it might go too far to label the Dutch time use patterns as
distinct based on this information, however, it does stand out in some respects, with the
low total workload as a notable example.
Resemblance in time use patterns
In seeking to identify clusters of countries which exhibit similar time use patterns, the
Netherlands shows most resemblance with neighbouring countries Belgium and Germany in terms of time use of the population aged 20-74 years of age. However Dutch
women have a Western European, Dutch men a Nordic time use pattern; further analysis
for women and men separately reveals that it is mainly the time use of women in the
Netherlands which resembles that of women in Belgium and Germany. By contrast, the
time use of men in the Netherlands shows more correspondences with that of men in
the Scandinavian countries. Again, we cannot say that the time use pattern of the Dutch
diverges sharply from that in other countries. The Dutch do fit in with other countries in
terms of resemblance in time use, although time use patterns of men and women show
resemblance with men and women in different countries.
Finally: where do we go next with comparable time use data?
Guidelines developed by Eurostat (he t us: Harmonized European Time Use Surveys)
have improved the comparability of the findings for different countries. Nonetheless,
there are still a number of shortcomings in these data. Despite the guidelines, there
are differences in the way in which the study was carried out in the different countries.
For example, the data were gathered in different years, some countries deviated from
the guidelines on some points and there are qualitative differences, for example in the
number of episodes recorded. Finally, the scope for analysis would improve considerably if Eurostat were to make the micro-data available. It would then be possible to
investigate the extent to which age, education and other relevant demographic and
background characteristics influence time use in each country, while the influence of
macro-factors could be examined more accurately.
51
a day w ith the dutch
Notes
1 The Netherlands in a day. Time use in the Netherlands compared to fifteen other European countries in Dutch:
­Nederland in een dag. Tijdsbesteding in Nederland vergeleken met die in vijftien andere Europese landen.
Published by The Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp (http://www.scp.nl/content.
jsp?objectid=28291).
2 Catp c a is a form of optimal scaling that reduces the dimensionality of the data by summarizing
much of the associational information present between the variables into a two-dimensional figure.
The technique is useful when the presence of many variables or objects prohibits effective inter­
pretation of relationships between them.
3 In chapter 2 the remark was made that resting was counted as sleeping instead of ‘free time’ in
France. To examine whether this influenced the results, the analysis was also performed without
including personal care. In that analysis, France and Bulgaria also group together, albeit in a somewhat less pronounced way – because in both countries a relatively large amount of time is spent on
household tasks. The countries thus not only show similarities in terms of personal care time, but
also in terms of time use on the household.
52
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Publications of the Netherlands Institute for Social
Research | SCP in English
Sport in the Netherlands (2007). Annet Tiessen-Raaphorst, Koen Breedveld.
isbn 978 90 377 0302 3
Market Place Europe. Fifty years of public opinion and market integration in the European Union. European
Outlook 5 (2007). Paul Dekker, Albert van der Horst, Henk Kox, Arjan Lejour, Bas Straathof,
Peter Tammes, Charlotte Wennekers. isbn 978 90 377 0306 1
Explaining Social Exclusion. A theoretical model tested in the Netherlands (2007). Gerda Jehoel-­
Gijsbers, Cok Vrooman. isbn 978 90 377 0325 2
Out in the Netherlands. Acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands (2007). Saskia Keuzenkamp,
David Bos. isbn 978 90 377 0324 5
Comparing Care. The care of the elderly in ten eu-countries (2007). Evert Pommer, Isolde Woittiez,
John Stevens.isbn 978 90 377 0303 0
Beyond the breadline (2008). Arjan Soede, Cok Vrooman. isbn 978 90 377 0371 9
Facts and Figures of the Netherlands. Social and Cultural Trends 1995-2006 (2008). Theo Roes (ed.).
isbn 978 90 377 0211 8
Self-selection bias versus nonresponse bias in the Perceptions of Mobility survey. A comparison using
­multiple imputation (2008). Daniel Oberski. isbn 978 90 377 0343 6
The future of the Dutch public library: ten years on (2008). Frank Huysmans, Carlien Hillebrink.
isbn 978 90 377 0380 1
Europe’s Neighbours. European neighbourhood policy and public opinion on the European Union. European
Outlook 6 (2008). Paul Dekker, Albert van der Horst, Suzanne Kok, Lonneke van Noije,
Charlotte Wennekers. isbn 978 90 377 0386 3
Values on a grey scale. Elderly Policy Monitor 2008 (2008). Cretien van Campen (ed.).
isbn 978 90 377 0392 4
The Netherlands Institute for Social Research | scp at a glance. Summaries of 16 scp -research projects in
2008 (2009). isbn 978 90 377 0413 6
Sport in the Netherlands (2009). Annet Tiessen-Raaphorst, Koen Breedveld.
isbn 978 90 377 0428 0
Strategic Europe. Markets and power in 2030 and public opinion on the European Union (2009).
Paul Dekker, Albert van der Horst, Paul Koutstaal, Henk Kox, Tom van der Meer,
Charlotte Wennekers, Teunis Brosens, Bas Verschoor. isbn 978 90 377 0440 2
58
public ations of the ne ther l a nd s ins titute for s o ci a l r ese a rch | s cp in english
Building Inclusion. Housing and Integration of Ethnic Minorities in the Netherlands (2009).
Jeanet Kullberg, Isik Kulu-Glasgow. isbn 978 90 377 0442 6
Making up the Gap, Migrant Education in the Netherlands (2009). Lex Herweijer.
isbn 978 90 377 0433 4
Rules of Relief. Institutions of social security, and their impact (2009). J.C. Vrooman.
isbn 978 90 377 0218 7
Integration in ten trends (2010). Jaco Dagevos and Mérove Gijsberts. isbn 78 90 377 0472 3
Monitoring acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands (2010). Saskia Keuzenkamp.
isbn 978 90 377 484 6
The minimum agreed upon. Consensual budget standards for the Netherlands (2010). Stella Hoff, Arjan
Soede, Cok Vrooman, Corinne van Gaalen, Albert Luten, Sanne Lamers.
isbn 978 90 377 0472 3
The Social State of the Netherlands 2009 (2010). Rob Bijl, Jeroen Boelhouwer, Evert Pommer,
Peggy Schyns (eds.). isbn 978 90 377 0466 2
At home in the Netherlands. Trends in integration of non-Western migrants. Annual report on Integration
2009 (2010). Mérove Gijsberts and Jaco Dagevos. isbn 978 90 377 0487 7
In the spotlight: informal care in the Netherlands (2010). Debbie Oudijk, Alice de Boer, Isolde Woittiez, Joost Timmermans, Mirjam de Klerk. isbn 978 90 377 0497 6
Wellbeing in the Netherlands. The scp life situation index since 1974 (2010). Jeroen Boelhouwer.
isbn 978 90 377 0345 0
Just different, that’s all. Acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands (2010). Saskia Keuzenkamp et
al. (ed.) isbn 978 90 377 0502 7
Acceptance of homosexuality in the Netherlands 2011. International comparison, trends and current situation (2011). Saskia Keuzenkamp. isbn 978 90 377 0580 5
Living together apart. Ethnic concentration in the neighbourhood and ethnic minorities’ social contacts and
language practices (2011). Miranda Vervoort. isbn 978 377 0552 2
Frail older persons in the Netherlands. Summary (2011). Cretien van Campen (ed.)
isbn 978 90 377 0563 8
Frail older persons in the Netherlands (2011). Cretien van Campen (ed.) isbn 978 90 377 0553 9
Measuring and monitoring immigrant integration in Europe (2012). Rob Bijl and Arjen Verweij (eds.)
isbn 978 90 377 0569 0
59
a day w ith the dutch
The Social State of the Netherlands 2011. Summary (2012). Rob Bijl, Jeroen Boelhouwer, Mariëlle
Cloïn, Evert Pommer (eds.) isbn 978 90 377 0605 5
Countries compared on public performance. A study of public sector performance in 28 countries (2012).
Jedid-Jah Jonker (ed.) isbn 978 90 377 0584 3
A day with the Dutch. Time use in the Netherlands and fifteen other European countries (2012). Mariëlle
Cloïn. isbn 978 90 377 0606 2
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