Control in Life

Abstract

This chapter focuses on part-time work as well as other ingredients necessary to improve control in life including paid leave, good childcare, care for the elderly and workers’ ability to determine their own working hours. How are new technogies, flexible contracts and the intensification of work affecting people’s own control in life?

The Dutch value clear boundaries around their work. However much they may be committed to their professions and occupations, they want to live a life and to be able to look after young children and elderly parents. It is thus hardly surprising that control over one’s working hours has become a key policy issue in recent decades.¹ This has largely been driven by women moving en masse into the paid labour market, although working men certainly want more control over their lives as well. One in ten workers in the Netherlands now say that their working and private lives are out of balance.² As deadlines pile up at work, so too does the washing up at home; as a result, people sometimes feel inadequate on both fronts.³ Some people – especially the highly educated, women and parents – feel perpetually rushed.⁴

Eurofound⁵ observes that it is relatively easy for people in the Netherlands to set limits on their work and to combine work with private life. This is largely due to the country’ s part-time work culture. Dutch women entered the workforce en masse only in the late 1990s, at about the same time as women in Spain and Ireland. The inroads women have made since then are largely due to the part-time economy, with shorter hours widely accepted even in the middle and upper segments of the labour market.⁶ But it is not only women who find it easier to enter paid work; the part-time culture also benefits other groups such as people with occupational disabilities (Box 5.2).

The question remains whether this has not created what economist Janneke Plantenga calls the “part-time trap”.⁷ Public provisions in the Netherlands, from school hours to pre-school childcare, tend to be geared to part-time work which has become the norm, in policy as well as in practice. As a result, many workers do not truly choose the hours they work. The part-time culture has also impeded progress in areas such as comprehensive childcare and paid leave.

This chapter focuses on part-time work as well as the other ingredients necessary to improve control in life including paid leave, good childcare, care for the elderly and workers’ ability to determine their own working hours. How are new technologies, flexible contracts and the intensification of work affecting people’s control in life?

1 Part-Time Work, or Looking After Number One

The work-life balance enjoyed by most people in the Netherlands can be attributed to the part-time economy, more specifically to the part-time economy for women. Three-quarters of working women are employed part-time (Fig. 5.1); their average working week has now risen to 28 h, which is no longer low by European standards. Twenty-two percent of working men also work part-time, a level unique in Europe. Overall, men work an average of 39 h a week (Fig. 5.2).⁸

Fig. 5.1

Proportion of women in part-time work in the Netherlands and the rest of the European Union, 2017

Source: scp

Fig. 5.2

Proportion of men in part-time work in the Netherlands and the rest of the European Union, 2017

Source: scp

The Care and Work Act, introduced in 2006, allows people to adjust their own working hours, providing what is effectively a right to work part-time. The possibilities were further expanded by the Flexible Working Act in 2016. This means that the Netherlands, together with the uk, now has the most comprehensive legislation for part-time work.⁹ By law, workers enjoy substantial autonomy to determine for themselves where and what hours they work. Combined with the Dutch part-time economy, the law ensures that people have more time for their families, voluntary work and other activities.

Does the lack of affordable childcare force especially women to work part-time? The answer, largely, is “no”: part-time work is what most women prefer. It is their wish, primarily because it allows them to spend more time with their children. Despite this, the Netherlands Institute for Social Research has calculated that the average female working week would be 2.3 h longer if all women were able to work the amount they preferred.¹⁰ Moreover, 13% of women – and 7% of men – explicitly state that they want to work more hours.¹¹ Whereas public policy in recent decades has focused on opportunities to work less, perhaps more attention is now warranted for possibilities to work more. While part-time work as a choice is a hallmark of good work, this choice is inevitably shaped by prevailing social, economic and institutional conditions. We examine the most important of these below.

1.1 Childcare

Would people in the Netherlands work longer hours if childcare was less expensive and of better quality? The provision of public care for young children – professional childminding, crèches, kindergartens, nursery schools – is seen primarily as a surrogate for parental care (the term kinderopvang implies a “relief” or “stand-by” service). The main aim of childcare in the Netherlands has always been to support women’s participation in the workforce – unlike in Scandinavia, where the child’s social, emotional and cognitive development is paramount.¹² The quality of Dutch childcare has long worried pedagogues.¹³ Most workers in the sector only have modest qualifications,¹⁴ and it is only quite recently that Dutch public childcare has been assessed as “satisfactory” to “good”.¹⁵ Pedagogues claim that compared to other countries, the quality of Dutch childcare is only “average”.¹⁶

Dutch parents often find the costs of childcare prohibitive, and they are right: only in the uk do parents spend more of their income on childcare. A couple with one full-time and one part-time earner can easily find themselves spending a fifth of their earnings on childcare, even if it is only for a few days a week.¹⁷ While parents generally consider the quality of the care good, they are critical of the high staff turnover – a product, in part, of labour market flexibilization.¹⁸ Dutch parents have low expectations.¹⁹ Because of the part-time economy, children only attend nursery a few days a week; “safe” and “fun” are thus good enough. If childcare focused more on the child’s educational development, parents might make more use of it, allowing them more time to work.

Box 5.1 Childcare in Northern Europe

Pre-school in Scandinavia has historically focused on children’s social and cognitive development, and Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark consistently top international tables for the quality of childcare. The idea is that – certainly from the age of two – children are better off attending nursery than staying at home. In Denmark, all children older than 6 months are entitled to at least 20 h of public childcare a week, even if their parents do not go out to work.²⁰ In line with this thinking, higher professional demands are placed on staff in the sector, who usually have vocational degrees. In contrast, their Dutch counterparts are more likely to have post-secondary qualifications at best, while many are on temporary contracts.

1.2 Care for the Elderly

Would people in the Netherlands work longer hours if care for the elderly were better organized? In previous generations, women were stay-at-home mothers and available to look after elderly relatives if need be. Now that most members of both sexes are working outside the home, more and more people are combining paid work and informal care-giving – one in three women and one in five men, 2 million people in all. This number will only continue to rise with the aging of the population and people staying in work for longer.²¹ So long as their care-giving only consists of basic tasks and errands that are not too time-consuming, most working informal care-givers manage to cope. But the heavier the burden becomes – 8 h or more a week – the more likely some will stop working altogether and many more will work fewer hours or take sick leave.²² Workers with heavy informal care responsibilities experience a great deal of time pressure and are less satisfied with their lives.²³

Compared to most other European countries, the Netherlands spends large sums on long-term care for the elderly. A significant percentage of those aged 75 and over live in residential nursing facilities or receive professional care in their own homes.²⁴ While the policy aim is for people to continue living independently for as long as possible, the Dutch social care system is not organized to support informal care-givers; it focuses on the elderly themselves, not on their working sons or daughters. What assistance informal care-givers receive comes from local government in the form of information, emotional support and at times short-term respite care – none of which does much to keep the informal care-giver in work.

Structural facilities to help working informal care-givers such as day-care centres and hospital-based services have been phased out. Referring to what they call the “participation society”, recent Dutch governments have called on people to take greater responsibility for care and to make less use of facilities provided by the welfare state. For the foreseeable future, the care demands placed on families are more likely to increase than decrease.²⁵

1.3 Fair Sharing

Do people work more if their partner does more at home? The policy ideal in the Netherlands has long been the “fair sharing” of both paid and unpaid work. But although the Dutch have been European leaders in talking about men’s responsibilities²⁶ and shared caring is the stated ideal of much of the population,²⁷ things differ in practice. Women usually reduce their working hours once children are born while men work more. In only 18% of households with children do both partners work equal hours. While Dutch men have begun caring more for their children than men in most other European countries except in Scandinavia, Dutch women more frequently remain responsible for household tasks and especially family organization. The differences are most apparent in informal care-giving, where 17% of working women and 10% of working men look after sick or needy elderly relatives, partners or children.²⁸

1.4 Good Work

If one chooses for it, working part-time can protect workers from the intensification of work.²⁹ But would part-time employees work longer hours if they had better jobs? Women tend to have less autonomy at work and are more likely to be working on a temporary or on-call basis and in sectors with high workloads such as primary education and healthcare. Some jobs are so emotionally stressful that people eschew full-time positions. In primary education, a leading reason to prefer part-time appointments is that teaching is “too demanding for a full-time job”.³⁰

Sometimes only part-time work is available, for instance in home care, after-school childcare and cleaning. Entry-level jobs for young women leaving school or college are often part-time,³¹ while cleaning often also employs men and ethnic minorities who must hold several part-time jobs to make ends meet. Part-time work has become the norm in some occupations and sectors, not because it helps workers gain control in life but because it is cheaper for employers.

While the Flexible Working Act sets the standard and encourages the practice of part-time employment,³² it is less well-known that this statute provides opportunities for both reducing and increasing working hours, for example by working from home. Legal proceedings to enforce this right are less common than cases seeking fewer hours and are also less likely to succeed as employers can give many reasons for opposing such requests.³³ Employees are often unaware that they can demand more official hours as an alternative to structural overtime. From the perspective of good work, being able to work more, if one wishes, is as important as the right to work less.

The quality of work can be a significant factor encouraging people to work fewer hours. It is striking that 70% of the lower skilled labour force in the Netherlands, male and female, have part-time jobs – a rate unsurpassed anywhere else in Europe.³⁴ Women in this group are less likely than other women to be working at all. When they do, they have on average the shortest working weeks: 22 h, compared with 25 h for women with post-secondary qualifications and 28 h for university graduates.³⁵ One reason, it seems, is that many women with lower educational attainment have “traditional” views of family life, preferring to spend a lot of time with their children; their husbands are less active in the household than other men. But there is also the fact that the work they do, or could do, is not very attractive. With better jobs, they might want to work longer hours.

In short, part-time work can help people gain control in life – but only if it is a genuine choice, not something forced on people because childcare is too expensive or poor in quality, because their jobs are too draining to do all day, every day, or because there are no full-time positions on offer.³⁶

Box 5.2 Part-Time Employment as an Opportunity to Work

Part-time employment provides opportunities for people with difficulties adapting to the demands and rhythms of paid work, or who need a stepping stone to full-time employment. They include people who wish to start working again after serious illness, the long-term unemployed and people with occupational disabilities. According to the oecd, it is because of the part-time economy that people with serious mental health issues in the Netherlands are more likely to be working than in other countries.³⁷ But in most cases, these people would like to be working longer hours to be able to make a decent living.³⁸

Although part-time employment allows people to more easily draw boundaries around their working lives, it comes at a price. Ultimately there is a price for society as well. The Dutch part-time economy is among the main reasons why women are less likely to be in good jobs and senior positions, and more likely to be paid less, to have lower pensions, to receive less compensation when they become incapacitated or unemployed, and to be, overall, less financially independent.³⁹ Only 60% of women (compared to 79% of men) have incomes that are at least 70% of the net full-time minimum wage.⁴⁰ This means that they have less financial bargaining power and run greater risks if their home situation changes due to separation or divorce. The Dutch solution to provide work-life balance thus has a price for both individuals and society.

2 Paid Leave

Workers in the Netherlands do not receive financial compensation for providing informal care. If parents choose to work part-time to look after the children, they bear the costs in lost income. Things are different in Scandinavia and Germany, where the dilemma of combining care with work has been solved through paid care leave, which can sometimes be taken on a part-time basis. The right to paid leave applies to both parents; sometimes it is subject to a “use it or lose it” clause to ensure that fathers take advantage of the provision to strengthen their bonds with their children and so that women do not fall further behind in the labour market.⁴¹ In contrast, the Netherlands only has parental leave for new mothers and, as of 1 July 2020, 5 days of paid partner leave, plus the option of taking up to 26 weeks of parental leave unpaid.

Figure 5.3 shows that the Netherlands lags behind much of Europe in its parental leave arrangements. Germany, for instance, provides a total of 14 months of parental leave on a state-funded benefit,⁴² which parents can divide between themselves. In Sweden the combined paid leave period for both parents is 16 months; the government pays a basic allowance, supplemented by employers. To comply with eu policy, the Netherlands is now revisiting its policies on parental leave. From 2022, all parents will continue to receive half their wages for the first nine weeks they take off (out of a total leave entitlement of 26 weeks) during the child’s first year of life – a still limited arrangement compared to many other European countries.⁴³

Fig. 5.3

Overall parental leave entitlement in months, eu countries, 2017

Source: Blum et al., 2018

The idea behind paid parental leave is that by giving both parents time and money to look after their new child, they divide care duties equally and both remain active in the labour market. The structure of the arrangement is crucial; it needs to include clauses ensuring that both partners actually take time off and that they are adequately compensated when they do so. As for its duration, the leave should be neither too short nor too long, so parents do not lose touch with the world of work. Eight to twelve months per person is probably a sensible period.⁴⁴

Leave arrangements for informal care-giving are even less developed than for new parents. Here the Netherlands is more in line with the rest of Europe. The Dutch system includes rights to emergency leave, short-term care leave (on 70% of salary) and long-term unpaid leave (approximately 6 weeks a year). But only one in ten informal care-givers make use of the paid leave they are entitled to, while many more use their vacation days or report sick in order to fulfil their care responsibilities.⁴⁵ Apparently, the almost unpaid arrangements available to them do not meet their needs. Few collective labour agreements include provisions for informal care, although there has been slightly more recognition in recent years of the “combined pressure” of work and care.⁴⁶

The growing group of flexible workers rarely claim paid leave. A self-employed person has no employer and is not covered by a collective labour agreement. A temporary employee has only limited rights, while having intensive care duties at home would seem unlikely to help them secure a permanent contract.⁴⁷ Plantenga concludes: “A self-employed worker with a sick partner or a single parent with a temporary contract and an unwell child see the hard face of the current social-care infrastructure.”⁴⁸ In the flexible, part-time Dutch economy, parents and informal care-givers bear the costs of lost income.

It is not inconceivable that looking after young children, elderly parents and sick partners will eventually become the privilege of the happy few. But for single parents with limited skills or low-earning or sick partners, choosing to work fewer hours is not always a viable option. The National Institute for Family Finance Information calculates that a person with an average income who works one day less a week to care for a sick father living elsewhere in the country will easily be €245 out of pocket each month. Particularly if workers must reduce their hours to care for a sick partner who depends on benefits, there is a genuine risk that they will descend into poverty.⁴⁹ While people with good jobs may have enough of a financial cushion to move into part-time work, especially if it is only temporary, what about the shop assistant with a sick father or partner? Such people often lack control or even influence over their working hours.⁵⁰ More than a third of working informal care-givers have no say at all over their working hours; more than one in five are rarely or never able to take time off.⁵¹ Having the time and money needed to provide care could well become a new issue of distributive justice.

Unpaid care is already apportioned unevenly. More and more women are fulfilling informal care responsibilities in their “spare” time. Much of this labour – as well as voluntary care work in home care and hospitals – falls on people already working in the social and healthcare sector, one in four of whom provide some form of unpaid care on top of their paid work.⁵² The burden of care, both paid and unpaid, thus disproportionately falls on a specific group of workers.

Paid work need not double the load for people with care responsibilities at home. Workplace flexibility and support from colleagues and managers may shield them from the strain. Those who have a good day at work can return home ready to take on the challenges of looking after a sick partner or a disabled child. Good jobs that give workers space for care-giving make unpaid care work possible.

Box 5.3 Do the Dutch Really Work So Little?

It is often claimed that the Dutch work less than anyone else in Europe. While this is true, the differences are not as great as many people think. The average Dutch person now works 29 h a week, the same as the average Belgian and only an hour less than the average Dane.⁵³ While the average Dutch worker in the 1960s logged about 1800 h per year, by 1990 this had declined to around 1400 h per year, a number which has since remained relatively stable. But collectively, the Dutch are working more than ever before (Fig. 5.4). This is because participation in the labour market, especially by women, has risen since the 1990s to a level comparable to that in the Scandinavian countries⁵⁴. Many working people thus also run households, take care of children and help out when loved ones are ill.

Fig. 5.4

Total labour in hours (x1 billion)

3 Control Over Working Hours

While part-time work, paid leave, childcare and home care services all have the potential to give working people greater control in life, people also need some control over where and when they work.⁵⁵ Above all, this means flexibility for the worker, not by the worker. About half of all working people in the Netherlands say they can largely determine their own hours; only workers in Denmark, Sweden and Norway fare better.⁵⁶ The other half, however, have no control over their hours. For them, requesting time off to look after a sick child or an evening shift to take an elderly parent to the hospital during the day can be problematic. Control over one’s working hours is also unevenly distributed, primarily along the axis of educational attainment.⁵⁷

Especially insecure temporary workers lack control over their working hours, a real problem for the 550,000 casual and on-call workers (see Chaps. 1 and 3) over-represented in the hospitality, cleaning, supermarket and healthcare sectors.⁵⁸ In theory, these workers can refuse shifts; in practice, they fear that they are replaceable and will no longer be called.⁵⁹ Especially in the above-mentioned sectors, employers roster their staff to eliminate “inactive” time at work. The work itself is also often intensive, leaving workers too exhausted to maintain a private life.⁶⁰

The combination of insecure contracts with uncertain hours – “double flexibility” – makes things even worse. In the words of a flexible home-care worker with a school-aged daughter: “You don’t know what your week will look like. You can’t make arrangements for your daughter. Everything is subject to change.”⁶¹ Research in the United States underlines the importance of regular, predictable working hours, with workers, on average, willing to surrender 20% of their pay in return for greater control over their hours.⁶²

Another form of labour flexibilization, self-employment, can be considered more accommodating for the working person. People who became their own boss often report they did so to combine work and care; better able to balance their personal and professional lives, they tend to be more satisfied with their situations, especially if they chose it themselves.⁶³ Among informal care-givers, the self-employed outnumber those with salaried positions.⁶⁴ It suggests that employers still do not take work-life balance seriously enough, although research shows that companies and institutions that allow personnel to tailor their work to their home situations have lower staff turnover, more enthusiastic employees and less absenteeism.⁶⁵

4 Blurring Boundaries

The self-employed sometimes have difficulties demarcating their working and private lives. This became apparent in the interviews conducted for our previous publication, For the Sake of Security.⁶⁶ In their free time, freelancers often feel they should be generating turnover: “The work goes on all the time”. This feeling of working all the time is the flip side of working from home.

Almost one-third of employees in the Netherlands regularly work overtime – most notably managers, teachers and university graduates aged 25–35.⁶⁷ Many must bring work home to finish their allotted tasks.⁶⁸ But it is not always clear anymore what people see as overtime. In one study, highly educated professionals did not consider reading and replying to e-mails as work.⁶⁹ They did this in front of the television in the evening and on Sundays, to be ready for work the next day – a clear case of blurring boundaries. While many professionals feel perpetually on call,⁷⁰ they need time to recover and would benefit from clear dividing lines between their work and personal lives.

The internet and portable devices are further blurring the boundaries of work. Digital technology is a double-edged sword; in a joint report, Eurofound and the ilo⁷¹ found smartphones, tablets, laptops and the like affecting the quality of work in both positive and negative ways. On the one hand, these technologies can improve work-life balance, reduce commuting time and stimulate productivity.⁷² Tele-working makes it easier for parents of young children to remain working full-time.⁷³ On the other hand, these technologies can lengthen working days, increase workloads and fuel work-life conflicts.⁷⁴ Many countries have thus begun imposing limits on how far workers can be contacted outside of their official hours. Since 1 January 2017, employees in France have the legal right to switch off their phones outside of working hours; several companies in Germany including bmw and Volkswagen entitle their employees to be “unreachable”. In the Netherlands, a 2019 parliamentary bill introduced the “right to inaccessibility” – a prerogative already included in some collective labour agreements.

5 Conclusion: Control in Life Requires More than Just Part-Time Work

It is easier to balance work and private life in the Netherlands than in many other countries. This is largely due to how public policy supports working part-time – meaning people are not forced to devote themselves entirely to work during life’s busy periods. The question nevertheless remains whether certain groups – especially moderately and less educated women – would not work longer hours if there was better public care for the young and the elderly. This would not only enable these groups to work more; it would encourage them to find better work. People without good work are more prepared to work less.

Care responsibilities generally remain unremunerated in the Netherlands; despite the high levels of workforce participation, opportunities for paid leave are limited. This means that especially female part-time workers pay a personal price for their commitment to care-giving. There is a social price as well, and the future may well see greater inequality between those who can negotiate (and afford) work arrangements that allow them to care for family and those who cannot. Control over working hours is crucial to control in life but is often limited or non-existent for low-skilled, temporary and on-call workers. While control in life is a cherished goal for most working people, it is certainly not something they all have.

6 Part 1 – Conclusion: Work Could Be better

People in the Netherlands are generally quite satisfied with their work. Nevertheless, there is substantial room for improvement across the three conditions necessary for work to be considered good: security of income, control over work and work-life balance. Based on Statistics Netherlands’ Monitor of Well-Being, Fig. 5.5 places the quality of work in the Netherlands in European perspective (the slices) and in light of recent developments (the inner ring). As we see, the Netherlands does not consistently rank well (green) across the twelve indicators of good work. In some areas, the country lags behind other European nations or the quality of work has been deteriorating (red). In other areas, the Netherlands is mid-range or there have been few positive developments (grey).

Fig. 5.5

Quality of work in the Netherlands, in Europe and over time: twelve indicators

Source: WRR, inspired by the Monitor of Well-Being (cbs)

6.1 Good Work in the Netherlands?

With the flexibilization of the labour market, more and more workers in the Netherlands have lost income security. If people have not experienced this uncertainty themselves, their partner, child or neighbour has. While the Dutch economy – even during the Covid-19 crisis – was generating a lot of jobs, many of these come with low (and further declining) job security. The social-security system itself has become a source of insecurity for many working people, especially the self-employed who are largely excluded from work-related social benefits.

While the Netherlands still scores better than many other European countries, workplace autonomy – necessary for shielding workers from excessive demands, for organizations to function effectively and for innovation – is declining. And although many Dutch workplaces offer social support, they can also be settings for aggressive behaviour; companies and institutions do not always bring out the best in people, especially for ethnic minorities and people with occupational disabilities. Nor has the kind of learning and professional development that would contribute to security of employment been widely embraced.

With widespread opportunities to work part-time, work and private life are easy to combine in the Netherlands. But the costs are borne by individuals, especially women. The country has limited paid leave arrangements to care for young children and the elderly although working people are increasingly likely to be assuming responsibilities for aging parents.

Publicly-funded child and elderly care make work possible. While quality childcare enables parents to work (more) – and encourages them to do so – the Netherlands does not excel in this area. Although care for the elderly is highly developed, there is scant emphasis on supporting working people who provide care outside of their working hours. The ability to determine when work starts and stops is important for work-life balance but not everyone has sufficient control over their working hours to allow taking on informal care responsibilities as well. In short, control in life is unevenly distributed.

6.2 Dividing Lines

The quality of work is under pressure for all working people in the Netherlands. Insecurity is increasing across the board and burnout is widespread. In this sense, there is no clear polarization between good and bad jobs, between “MacJobs” and “McJobs”. There is no guarantee of good work, even for university graduates. That said, some people clearly have better work than others. People with modest educational qualifications on aggregate have less control over the three dimensions of good work. Women, too, generally earn less, are more insecure and enjoy less control over their work. The same applies to people with migration backgrounds.

New divisions are emerging in how much control people enjoy over their working lives. There are significant differences by level of education as well as between occupations, with public-sector professionals in healthcare and education as well as the police having the least control over their work. Alongside the classic gender divide, new divisions are emerging between workers who are able to combine their careers with informal care-giving and those who cannot because they have no say over the time and place of their shifts.

6.3 Three Core Developments

The three developments at the heart of this book – the automation, flexibilization and intensification of labour – may well have negative consequences for the quality of work in the coming years. One danger is that the wider use of robots and artificial intelligence will further limit workers’ autonomy, reduce their wages and increase the flexibility expected of working people. But this need not happen; ​​technology can also contribute towards good work.

While the intensification of work can exacerbate burnout and absenteeism, this need not happen if people retain sufficient control over their working lives. While the flexible labour market reduces people’s control over their earnings, the risks are diminished if there is adequate social-security provision and if all workers enjoy greater opportunities for professional development.

6.4 Policy Choices

Whether or not work improves will depend primarily on decisions made by employers, who can support workplace learning and professional development and ensure that workers have adequate control over the organization of their tasks and the space they need to harmonize their lives at work and at home. This is also a matter for the government. Good work is supported by public policies for training and social security (Chap. 3), by legislation governing working conditions and its enforcement, and by protecting and promoting the rights of workers.

A Day at Work: The Retail Floor Manager

Although the shop does not open until 10 am, Cathelijn is there at 9. There is plenty to do, including cleaning up and checking the till. But first a cup of coffee. De Prael is a small brewery with a pub and shop in the heart of old Amsterdam. In addition to the 17 varieties of De Prael beer, the store also sells local or sustainable delicacies such as wine, liqueurs, cheese, nuts, chocolate and coffee to take away. Cathelijn, 49, works here as “floor manager” four days a week, between 9 am and 2 pm.

In the meantime, Atone (pronounced Ah-ton) has arrived as well, a cheerful 65-year-old man of Senegalese descent with a history of drug addiction. He works here one or two days a week on a voluntary basis. De Prael is a social enterprise employing dozens of people “distanced” from the labour market, either unpaid but with benefits or on subsidized wages. Some are making real progress. Cathelijn began here 5 years ago as a volunteer; for the past 2 years, she has been earning a regular salary through a sheltered employment scheme. For others, like Atone, it is enough that they have somewhere they are expected to be.

Cathelijn vacuums the store and Atone follows her with a mop. Sales were good yesterday, meaning there are empty spaces on the shelves to be replenished. At 10 am Cathelijn opens the door and Atone inserts the company banners into their holders outside. He used to attend an addiction clinic, he says, and was not the easiest of clients. “I didn’t listen”, he laughs out loud. “But now I do.” He is full of praise for Cathelijn: “She has motivated me.”

Cathelijn has a university degree and used to work as a researcher, but 10 years ago suffered a nervous breakdown. “For years I spent my days in bed.” She finally realized she had to do something and ended up at De Prael after being referred there by the mental health service. First in administration, later in the shop. “The depression slowly subsided, and the work helped. Structure. Cycling to work in the morning, along with all the other people doing the same. Keeping busy, but at your own pace. You can do that here.” Cathelijn no longer needs much supervision, although she did at the beginning. “That’s not structured guidance – here, you get what you ask for.”

Two Asian tourists enter the store, look around and leave. A young woman comes in for a cappuccino. A couple, clearly in love, pick out a selection of beers. Cathelijn takes their money. Atone jumps in to help, wrapping each bottle in a sheet of newspaper. Otherwise they will clink in the bag, he explains.

Two years ago, Cathelijn’s case manager asked if she would like to convert her volunteer position into a paid job under the sheltered work scheme. She jumped at the chance. Before she could make the move, the Employee Insurance Agency had to assess her fitness for work. That was “very confrontational”. De Prael now pays her in line with the results of the assessment, with the city council topping it up so that she is earning the statutory minimum wage. She loves not being on benefits anymore. “They’re just hassle and stress. They can try to make you work somewhere, and maybe I wouldn’t be able to handle that.”

The pressure at De Prael is lower than elsewhere but the laws of economics still apply. The shop is not bringing in enough money. Because its future is uncertain, Cathelijn has been looking around for other work. She has made three applications, for both regular and sheltered jobs, and two have been accepted. But she is not sure what to do. “Change is hard. I know what I have here, and I don’t know what I might get.”

Cathelijn has lunch at 12:30 pm. What she calls “the canteen” is a good-sized kitchen with dining tables laid with bread, milk, boxes of chocolate sprinkles and family jars of peanut butter. Two quiet older ladies keep them topped up, clear away the used dishes and wash up. A dozen or so workers from the brewery are eating. Cathelijn does not know them all, or how they came to work here. “That’s not important.” She thinks everyone deserves a paid job. “Not everyone is productive enough, but it’s important that you have opportunities to grow. There has to be hope that you can make progress.”

Atone leaves just before 2 pm. He gives Cathelijn a hug. A little later she puts on her coat as well. Five years ago, she would come home exhausted after half a day at work. Now she has energy to spare.

Sheltered employment is meant for people who need extra guidance and a suitable workplace due to an occupational disability. They have a contract and are paid at least the statutory minimum wage. There were approximately 3000 sheltered positions in the Netherlands as of mid-2019, a number which should eventually increase to 30,000 under agreements between the central government and local authorities who are responsible for managing the schemes. Sheltered employment is one of many participation-enhancing interventions consistently shown by research to strengthen self-reliance and enhance social participation. But very few sheltered employees move into regular work.