Austria introduced the question of what happens when labour markets adapt to family life through widespread part-time work. Denmark illustrated how continuity of support can significantly reduce the long-term economic impact of motherhood. Spain demonstrated how care can be framed as shared public responsibility. Germany showed what happens when access to childcare and reduced working hours are embedded in law.

The Netherlands introduces a different, but equally important, question:

What happens when high maternal employment and widespread part-time work coexist within a system that treats childcare as normal infrastructure?

According to Eurostat Labour Force Survey data (2022), close to 80% of mothers with young children in the Netherlands participate in the labour market. In Ireland, the figure remains closer to the mid-60% range. At the same time, more than half of employed women in the Netherlands work part-time, compared to less than one third in Ireland.

These differences are not accidental. They reflect structural design choices: how childcare is organised, how working hours are structured, and how part-time employment is positioned within the labour market.

The Dutch model is not without criticism. Nor is it a template to copy wholesale. But it raises an important question for Ireland:

If childcare remains one of the primary barriers to maternal employment, what changes when participation is built into the system rather than negotiated around its gaps?

How the Netherlands Structures Childcare

The Dutch childcare system is not fully state-run, nor is it universally free. It operates through a mixed model combining private providers with substantial public subsidy. What distinguishes it is not simplicity, but scale and normalisation.

Childcare in the Netherlands is widely used. Formal childcare participation rates among children under three are significantly higher than in Ireland. For many families, enrolling a child in day-care is not an exceptional decision driven by necessity, it is part of the expected rhythm of early childhood.

The state supports this through the childcare allowance (kinderopvangtoeslag), which subsidises a substantial proportion of childcare costs. The level of support depends on household income and working hours. Both parents must generally be in employment, education, or reintegration programmes to qualify, linking childcare explicitly to labour market participation.

This really matters.

Childcare is not treated as a residual support or a patch over labour market rigidity. It is integrated into the employment system. The underlying assumption is that parents will work, often part-time, and that care infrastructure must make that feasible.

At the same time, the Dutch system has faced criticism. The childcare benefits scandal exposed serious administrative failures and disproportionate penalties affecting thousands of families. More recently, political debate has focused on moving toward greater public funding and reducing complexity in the allowance system.

So the Netherlands does not present a flawless model.

But it does present something structurally different from Ireland: childcare is embedded as a standard component of economic participation rather than a marginal support accessed only when families can afford it.

In Ireland, childcare costs remain among the highest in Europe relative to income. Subsidies exist, and recent reforms have expanded support. Yet availability, affordability, and hours continue to vary widely. Access can depend heavily on geography, provider capacity, and family income. For many parents, especially mothers, participation in the labour market remains conditional on whether childcare can be secured and sustained.

The contrast is not merely about price, it is about the expectation.

In the Netherlands, maternal employment and childcare use are normalised features of the system. In Ireland, they often remain negotiated outcomes shaped by constraint.

Part-Time as Design, Not Deviation

One of the most distinctive features of the Dutch labour market is the normalisation of part-time work.

More than half of employed women in the Netherlands work part-time. Among mothers, the proportion is even higher. Crucially, part-time employment is not confined to low-paid or marginal sectors. It exists across professional, managerial, and skilled roles.

This is not accidental.

The Netherlands has, for decades, embedded part-time work into labour law. Employees have the legal right to request reduced or increased working hours, and employers must seriously consider such requests. Part-time workers are entitled to the same hourly pay rates, pension accrual, and employment protections as full-time workers on a pro-rata basis.

In other words, part-time work is not structurally penalised in the same way it often is elsewhere.

This changes behaviour.

When reduced hours are protected by law and socially normalised, they become a viable pathway rather than a career compromise. Parents, particularly mothers, can remain economically active without exiting the workforce entirely.

But this design also produces tension.

Critics argue that while the Dutch system enables participation, it also entrenches a long-term pattern of maternal part-time work. Women remain strongly represented in reduced-hours employment, while full-time roles remain more common among men. This has implications for lifetime earnings, pension accumulation, and leadership representation.

So the Dutch model does not eliminate the motherhood penalty. It reshapes it.

Instead of a sharp exit from the labour market followed by difficult re-entry, it creates sustained but reduced participation. Whether that represents empowerment or structural containment depends on perspective. What is clear, however, is that part-time work in the Netherlands is embedded, not improvised.

It is anticipated by policy.

What This Means for Ireland

Ireland does not lack conversations about flexibility. In recent years, remote work, hybrid models, and flexible hours have entered mainstream discussion, particularly during and immediately after the pandemic. Many employers experimented with new working arrangements as labour markets tightened and expectations shifted.

However, the direction of travel has not been consistent. In some sectors, recent return-to-office mandates have reduced flexibility that was previously introduced, reinforcing the idea that flexible work remains conditional rather than structural.

In Ireland, flexibility often operates at the level of individual negotiation rather than system design.

While employees now have the legal right to request remote or flexible working under recent legislation, approval ultimately depends on employer decision-making. Reduced hours, job-sharing, or predictable part-time transitions are still frequently arranged on a case-by-case basis rather than embedded as standard employment structures across sectors.

This distinction matters because when flexibility is rights-based and normalised, as in the Netherlands, it reshapes expectations across the labour market. When flexibility depends on employer culture, seniority, or sector, access becomes uneven.

Childcare availability compounds this.

In Ireland, childcare costs remain among the highest in Europe relative to income, and access varies significantly by region. Preschool hours are limited. After-school provision remains fragmented. For many families, especially those outside major urban centres or without informal support networks, labour market participation continues to depend on navigating these gaps.

Part-time work exists in Ireland, but it does not carry the same structural embedding. It is more common in lower-paid sectors and less widely protected in professional pathways. Parents who wish to reduce hours may face career stagnation or financial instability. Those who wish to increase hours may struggle to secure care.

Beyond this, income-support systems often assume full-time labour availability. Parents seeking part-time work can fall into administrative grey areas, neither fully supported as jobseekers nor fully accommodated within employment structures.

The contrast with the Netherlands is not about whether one country “values mothers” more than another.

It is about design.

In one system, part-time work and childcare access are built into the architecture of participation. In the other, participation often depends on negotiation, affordability, and individual resilience.

That difference shapes outcomes.

A Structural Question for Ireland

The Netherlands does not offer a flawless model. Its childcare system has faced serious administrative failure in recent years, and the persistence of gendered part-time patterns raises valid questions about long-term equality and progression.

But comparative analysis is not about perfect systems, it is about what different designs reveal.

The Dutch case shows what happens when childcare is normalised as infrastructure and part-time work is embedded as a legitimate labour market pathway. Participation becomes more predictable. Reduced hours become less stigmatised. Parents are not forced into all-or-nothing decisions.

Ireland’s challenge is not a lack of individual effort. Mothers are not “opting out” because they lack ambition. Many are making rational adaptations to a system where care remains costly, fragmented, and misaligned with working life.

The question, then, is not whether Ireland should copy another country.

It is whether we are willing to examine how our own structures shape participation, and whether we are prepared to redesign them with care as a central condition of economic life.

Childcare reform matters. Work design matters. Part-time viability matters.

Real choice requires all three.

And if Ireland wants to increase participation without forcing families into burnout or precarity, the conversation must widen beyond cost alone, toward structural compatibility between care and work.

That is not an abstract ideal, but a design question.

And design can change.

This article is part of Karla’s wider series exploring care, work and economic security for mothers across Europe and Ireland.

‍