Dutch women hardly work more than men, new report shows

Dutch women have hardly worked more in the last five years, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reports. Almost 69 percent of women up to the age of 75 had a paid job in the first quarter of 2024, compared to over 65 percent in 2019.

Slightly more men, 77 percent, were also in paid work at the start of 2024. According to CBS, the difference between the proportion of men and women in employment remained the same. CBS Chief Economist Peter Hein van Mulligen, however, sees different trends in the various age groups. "Above the age of 65, the difference has actually widened, which is probably due to the higher retirement age. Men, in particular, are working longer because the women in this generation often have no paid work".

According to CBS, 27 percent of men between the ages of 65 and 75 will be in paid work in 2024. Five years earlier, the figure was less than 15 percent. More than 12 percent of women now have a job, compared to just over 5 percent in 2019. Van Mulligen expects the gap between working men and women in this age group to narrow significantly in five years "unless the retirement age is raised sharply."

According to CBS, women between the ages of 25 and 65 have been catching up in recent years. "The difference is no longer very big, so it can't decrease very much," says Van Mulligen.

Among 15 to 25-year-olds, it used to be more likely to be women who had a job or a part-time job. Van Mulligen says that men and women in this age group now work roughly the same number of hours.

Women have been working more hours per week over the past decade. According to CBS, women will work an average of nearly 27 hours per week in 2024, up from just over 25 hours a decade earlier. This brings them closer to the average working week for men, which has been 36 hours over the past decade.