Combining Paid Work and Eldercare in the Netherlands in the Practice of Selected Dutch Organizations

Abstract

The possibility to balance work and eldercare in the Netherlands is determined by legal and institutional factors (such as special employment entitlements for a career in the form of leaves and a flexible working arrangement). In our paper we compare the Dutch legislation in this field with the HRM practice of four Dutch public and private (non-profit and for-profit) organizations. The aim is to check what kind of workplace eldercare assistance is provided by the organizations and what forms are applied due to legal regulations and what goes beyond these regulations and why. The results show that the relationship between employer and employee is based on mutual trust. Dutch employers are – as far as circumstances permit – more generous in practice than the specific legislation requires, mainly due to the minimum rights in the legislation. A reason for the generosity is self-interest. The Dutch regulation of sick pay can be seen as an incentive to prevent sickness as it obliges employers to continue paying the wages during sickness for a long period. Moreover, they want to build loyalty and motivation among their employees by developing a formof corporate social responsibility.

People living with dementia using eldercare in Sweden

“…In addition, a wide range of studies further found that the allocation of eldercare prioritizes different factors in different countries. For instance, homecare services in the Netherlands were mainly based on client characteristics such as financial situation, and availability of residential care (Furmańska-Maruszak & Heeger-Hertter, 2019). Studies carried out in the Czech Republic (Souralová & Šlesingerová, 2017) and Poland (Wojciech, 2018) were concerned about the quality of and needs for services provided at home.…”

Editorial: Mainstreaming Equality in EU Law and Beyond

“…In 'Fair Working Conditions for Workers Providing Informal Care for the Elderly in Poland and in the Netherlands', Agnieszka Furmańska-Maruszak and Susanne Heeger also depart from the EPSR, in particular Principle 9 covering 'fair working conditions in balancing work and life'. The authors zoom in on a particular group of workers which is numerically quite large, 33 , by dividing migrants into different categories according to their residence permits and granting highly unequal access to social benefits to these different categories of migrants. This may be exacerbated at the national level, as is the case in Italy the authors argue, creating 'multilayered fragmentation'.…”