Dutch new fathers receive only two days paternal leave on the birth of a child, while Dutch women get 16 weeks of paid maternity leave. Change might be on the way.

During a conference on work and healthcare in The Hague held this week, minister of Social Affairs Lodewijk Asscher announced that he wanted to extend the current paternal leave of two days.

When it comes to paid parental leave for fathers, the Netherlands shares its low ranking position within Europe with Switzerland, Ireland and Austria.

"This discussion is a good thing," a woman said while feeding her baby in a lunch cafe. "I find it ridiculous that my husband is not given the chance to take care of our baby in the first months."

Professor of Social Science at the VU in Amsterdam Saskia Keuzenkamp also thinks it is a good idea to give new fathers more time taking care of their babies. "They can develop a tighter relationship with their baby when they are involved from the beginning. And that will most likely stimulate fathers to take up more of the non-paid parental leave in a later stage," Keuzenkamp told Xinhua.

"It has become a trend that Dutch men increasingly work part-time," she added.

But figures mainly show another trend. Even thought the female labour participation rate is 60 per cent, most of the Dutch women chose to work part-time, especially when they become mother. 60 per cent of the Dutch mothers works between 12 to 28 hours a week. Dutch men however, work more when they become father, figures published by the Dutch Emancipation monitor 2012 showed.

In addition, the take up rates, giving parents the right to take up non-paid work time of around 1040 hours, are mostly used by women, which indicates that family responsibilities are still the woman's job. Figures show that only 19 per cent of the fathers who had the right to take parental leave used it in 2010.

The Dutch gender debate initially started when minister of Education and Culture Jet Bussemaker called up women to rethink their economic position earlier this year. According to her, women with children should become more financially independent of their partners.

The Dutch government believes that male and female labour market participation is important to maintain economic growth and to ensure sustainable pension and social protection systems.

But which policy could stimulate that? By giving father financial incentives to take care of their children, but also by publicly financing day care, or by adjusting working hours to school hours, European MP Marije Cornelissen told Xinhua.

"But the Netherlands is far behind other countries. Dutch men have not been financially stimulated enough to take care of their children," Cornelissen said.

"For example, when a dual household income earns more than a certain amount, parents will loose their rights for a day care subsidy. So when the man earns more, which unfortunately is still the reality today, the woman is not given any financial incentive to continue working. So she will chose to stay at home. And then nothing really changes," Cornelissen added.

"I think that if the Dutch government subsidizes the children day care in a smart way, a change in mentality will follow automatically. This is what you already see happening in the Scandinavian countries," Cornelissen told Xinhua. Endi

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