oa Daalt in Nederland de arbeidsmoraal? Een alternatieve verklaring voor tijdsschaarste

Are work values in the Netherlands decreasing? An alternative explanation for time scarcity

During the 1990's, complaints about a lack of time have increased in the Netherlands. Popular explanations of time scarcity, like an increased workload and an increase of the labour force participation, do not seem satisfactory for the Netherlands. In this article, the hypothesis that work values in the Netherlands are declining will be tested using the OSA Labour Supply Panel for the period 1988-2004. The results show time scarcity has increased during this period, as the decrease of preferred working hours exceeded the decrease of actual working hours. They also show that work is taking an increasingly less central position in people's lives. Furthermore, regression analyses show centrality of work has, next to the effect of some situational factors, a moderate but stable effect on preferred working hours in the period 1988-1996. The most important conclusion is that work plays a decreasingly central role in the life of the Dutch, and as a consequence working hours are decreasing.