"Conversations are held with your partner, but also within a system"

Echtpaar zit op de bank in een serieus gesprek © iStockphoto.com/SDI Productions
© iStockphoto.com/SDI Productions

During the corona crisis, many people's work-life balance has come under pressure. Women often have even more unpaid care duties on their plate than usual. Dr Ruth van Veelen (Social, Health & Organisational Psychology) shares in podcast Hete Hangijzers her own experiences with and research on this topic.

Dr. Ruth van Veelen
Dr Ruth van Veelen

The default path

"It is important to make good arrangements at home," says Van Veelen. "You have those conversations at home with your partner, but you also have them with a system in which, especially in times of crisis, choosing the default path is easier." Studies on the corona crisis show the same thing: "Men have started to do more in the household, but women even more." In conversations with partners, therefore, the norms of the system also play an important role.

Facilities in the Netherlands

Many of these norms may be seen as old-fashioned, but they still largely determine how we behave. Van Veelen gives an example: "In the research we do into the choice of women to work parttime, you also see that the parental contribution expected by schools in the Netherlands is incredibly high. That creates the implicit expectation that one of the parents will have to work less, because the system in the Netherlands does not have all kinds of facilities."