Work and the demands of the participation society don’t sit well together, so why not give women who work full-time a tax break so they can buy the help they need.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Women Inc presented ‘100 women of the Netherlands’. Based on CBS figures, Women Inc made a list of a hundred women who together can be said to represent the Dutch woman of today. These women participated in a debate about money. Their comments give a worrying insight into the current situation of working women in this country.

At one end of the spectrum there were those who were married, did not have a job and had no idea what their financial situation was. They had made no provision for themselves in case things went wrong and felt they didn’t have to: ‘We will not get divorced’. ‘Why not?’ someone asked. ‘Because we promised each other we would be faithful to one another forever.’

Censored

At the other end were women who were economically independent and who felt they were being censored by society for that reason. One full-time working mother of four said: ‘When I take one of the children to the healthcare centre for infants they say: “I see here that you have a job. How many days a week do you work?” I’m afraid they may send the child protection agency to my door if I say five days so I tell them three and that my husband is often home as well. He isn’t; he has a full-time job too, but I don’t want to be lectured to.’

The government has created a dilemma for women. They want women to be economically independent and work full-time so more of them will end up in the top jobs. But that same government is advocating the participation society and it is women in particular who are being called upon to do more in schools or take on more caring duties. This on top of the household duties and child care which, in many households, are still mostly the woman’s domain.

It takes a strong woman to juggle both the demands of work and those of the participation society. Both are important but there are only 24 hours in a day and inevitably one of the two will be suffering.

Reward

Women who work full-time only have one alternative: to pay women who do not have a job to do these tasks for them. But here we immediately hit a snag: care tasks are not valued enough financially. Why do we reward work away from home and not work done in the home? These are hours spent working.

Here’s a thought: why don’t we give women who work full-time a tax break of up to 20% which they can use to buy in help? That will give care tasks more financial status, create market value and remove this sort of work from the illegal circuit. And ambitious women won’t have to feel guilty for being focused on their careers.

Annemarie van Gaal is head of publishing company AM Media and a writer and columnist.