Parents carry on working normally after birth

16 March 2004

AMSTERDAM — Two thirds of pregnant Dutch women who work outside the home do not plan to cut back on their jobs after the baby is born, and their partners don’t intend to reduce the hours they put in either, a new report claims.

Some 66 percent of expectant parents would rather not discover whether the unborn child is male or female. While these partners might be stalling on the question of whether the baby room should be blue or pink, they have been proactive by signing up the awaited arrival for day care.

These are some of the findings of research carried out for the pregnancy fair, or negen-maanden-beurs, in the RAI convention centre in Amsterdam.

The results are based on answers given by 600 women who are pregnant or who recently had a baby.

Just over 60 percent had a part-time job outside the home and of these a third said they planned to cut back on work hours after the birth. In about 4 percent of cases, the father also intends to work part-time to devote more time to the family.

The study found that three quarters of expectant mothers in the Netherlands planned to breast feed their babies, with two out of five saying it was “better” than bottle feeding.

The remainder said they were opting for the bottle because breast feeding was painful, or to allow other people to feed the child.

Separately, research carried out by human resources specialist Management Centre Europe (MCE) has found that few fathers in Europe avail of their rights to paternity leave.

Of the 76 percent entitled to time off to be with a child, only 16 percent took paternity leave, MCE said.

Subject: Dutch news