New work and the family life course in the Netherlands (NeWFam-NL)

This project has received an ODISSEI Microdata Access Grant (MAG) in 2020.

Project applicant: dr. Jennifer Holland (EUR-ESSB).

Project abstract

Over the last 50 years, macro-economic changes have resulted in the emergence and proliferation of new working conditions. This ‘New Work’ is characterized by an increase in the share of workers with temporary contracts, self-employment with no personnel (ZZP’er), part-time work and non-standard work hours, remote working, and complex work histories. The consequences of New Work for the family life chances of young adults have largely been overlooked and understudied.

This project explores the relationship between experiences of New Work and subsequent union formation, childbearing, and union dissolution. Combining detailed data on working conditions from the Dutch Labor Force Survey (Enquête beroepsbevolking, EBB) and administrative register data, this project will identify New Workers and follow them prospectively, observing their family-life-course dynamics. It intends to unravel the complex relationship between New Work and family life chances, exploring critical ages when exposure to New Work may be helpful or harmful for family building and stability. With survey and administrative data since 1996, it will identify stability and change in the consequences of New Work, from a time when it was marginal until today, when it is increasingly commonplace.

Documenting and extrapolating from trends in the family outcomes of New Workers will provide insights into what the future might hold, also for those experiencing New Work for the first time as a result of the current Covid-19 crisis.


Conducting research with CBS microdata

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) collects a wide range of data for its statistical tasks, many of them microdata at the level of individual persons or organisations. Protection of the confidentiality of the data has the highest priority for CBS. Within strict safety conditions however, universities and other authorized research institutes can get Remote Access to such data to perform statistical analyses for their own scientific or statistical purposes. The microdata themselves remain strictly within a secure environment within CBS. Under applicable conditions researcher can also bring in additional dataset to be linked with CBS microdata. Before aggregate statistical results are exported from the secured environment, CBS will check whether these results do not contain any risk for disclosure of information on individual persons or organisations.

Read more about using microdata within the CBS Remote Access Environment.


Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash.