Yolanda Grift

Changes in Female Labour Supply in the Netherlands 1989-1998: The Case of Married and Cohabiting Women

It is well-known that married and cohabitingwomen differ in labour supply. But we know verylittle about the causes of this difference. Isit due to differences in characteristics, likeage, presence and ages of children, own netwage rate, and net income of the partner? Or isit a difference in behaviour that – even aftercontrolling for variation in characteristics –is the basic cause? In this article we try toanswer these questions for Dutch married andcohabiting women. We use data of nationalsurveys by Statistics Netherlands for 1989 and1998. This also allows us to investigatewhether there have been important changes inthe last decade. Because we are able to comparethe results with those of an analogous analysisthat two of the authors did on similar Dutchdata for 1981 we are able to draw conclusionsabout changes that took place over the lasttwenty years. The results show that the massivegrowth in female labour force participation isespecially due to the growth in participationby married women. A slight decrease in labourmarket participation of cohabiting women can beobserved in the last decade. This seems to bethe result of cohabitation becoming morenormal, including cohabitation when there areyoung children in the household.

Managerial perceptions of works councils’ effectiveness in the Netherlands

Although works councils have, by and large, equally extensive legal rights in Germany and the Netherlands, this is the first econometric analysis that investigates the influence of Dutch works councils on firm performance. We use a nationwide Dutch dataset with information on management’s perceptions of the works council’s impact on their establishments’ efficiency and innovation. Inspired by the German study of Jirjahn and Smith (2006, Industrial Relations 45:650–80), we analyze which determinants influence management’s attitude toward employee participation in the Netherlands. Owing to the specifics of our data, we are able to additionally include variables that measure the interaction between management and worker representatives. We establish a preponderant influence emanating from the works council’s role attitude and management’s leadership style.

Dutch trade union membership 1979-1995

Determinants of Dutch trade union membership are analysed for the years 1979, 1987 and 1995. By means of a decomposition method it is established that changing characteristics of the working population primarily caused the union decline between 1979 and 1987, whereas the recovery afterwards can be entirely attributed to changing unionization behaviour. A further application of the decomposition method shows that the contribution of the separate explanatory variables to shifts in the density rate is less straightforward than the results of the first analyses suggest.

Supply determinants of part-time work of Dutch married women: the influence of taxes and social premiums

Labour supply is classified into five classes: one for zero hours a week (i.e. nonparticipation), and four for 1–14, 15–24, 25–34, and more than 34 hours a week, respectively. This allows us to investigate whether changes in the taz and social premium system have different effects on the labour supply in different hours classes. Such an investigation has been carried out by applying a multinomial logit analysis in combination with a method introduced by Hausman to allow the incorporatin of taxes and social premiums in the estimation of labour supply functions of Dutch married women. Comparing the 1983 and 1985 tax and social premium systems the results of the analysis indicate that the introduction of the new system has had only a small discouraging effect on the labour supply of Dutch married women.

The Impact of Works Councils on Productivity in Times of Reorganization

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The excess burden of the tax and social premium system for Dutch married women

SummaryThe excess burden of a tax is the diminution of utility above that which would have occurred had the tax been collected as a lump sum. Computing the excess burden for the 1983 and 1985 Dutch tax and social premium system enables a partial welfare evaluation of the recent changes in the system, the so-called ‘Tweeverdienersmaatregelen’. Based on the equivalent and compensating variation, the excess burden as a percentage of the taxes and social premiums for the 1983 and 1985 system are valued at 27010 and 84010, and 37010 and 58010 respectively. This result indicates that, welfare-theoretically, the old system seems preferable to the new one.

The economic effects of works councils: channels and conditions. Using secondary data to test a new theoretical model

German studies already have supported the existing positive economic effects of works councils, but failed to explain how these effects are produced. New case study based research from the Netherlands has provided a theory consisting of three channels to create economic impact, also including a set of necessary conditions. This article presents a secondary analysis of this theory with the use of a large data set. This quantitative analysis further supports the theory and contains interesting nuances about how the channels work, in particular about the role of the availability of sufficient works council candidates at elections.