Wow! Facebook just suggested me an advertisement about a ghostwriter. The pitch: “You are successful. You have embarked upon a great career. You want to achieve a doctorate.” It’s not just that I think this is spam, it also seems highly unethical. To make things even worse, Facebook did not provide the usual options to… Continue Reading
Together with Laurie Maldonado, I’ll be coordinating a stream on single parents at the upcoming ESPAnet conference (September 3-5, 2015, Odense, Denmark). Although as stream organizers we do not make the final decision on accepting papers to be presented (nor on how many papers will be accepted). However, we very much hope that interested scholars… Continue Reading
I am very pleased to announce that I received research funding for a project titled “No Activation without Reconciliation?”. This project will be my main focus in the whole of 2015. From the proposal: This research proposal seeks to complement the strong micro-econometric tradition in evaluating impacts of active labour market programs (ALMP) with a… Continue Reading
There are reasons to appreciate Hanna Rosin’s ‘The End of Men': it was pleasantly written, contains various entertaining anecdotes, and holds an attractive promise of increased gender equality – although, to trumpet the demise of men (to paraphrase page 285) might be somewhat less desirable. It would have made for a relevant book, were it… Continue Reading
Can one argue that women’s emancipation is completed merely based on the perception that every individual women can make her own decisions regarding employment? And, can one use the same argument to reject a recent dissertation that found that women in the Netherlands face social pressure to stop working after having their first child –… Continue Reading
I started dreaming about my PhD defense about three weeks in advance. One dream is still clearly on my mind. It was at my defense, and everyone was there: committee, supervisors, colleagues, friends and family. I was there too, standing behind a desk trying to answer the questions. The only thing was, however, that the… Continue Reading
During my PhD I have been the president of the PhD Network of the University of Twente (P-NUT). This network attempts to connect, inform and to represent PhD candidates.One of the key debates during my term as president (and still current) was the introduction of bursary candidates in the Netherlands. Currently, most PhD candidates (some… Continue Reading
It is a Dutch tradition that a PhD dissertation contains a leaflet with propositions. I have 10 such propositions, and during the countdown towards my very own PhD defense, on January 10th, I am presenting one each day. Proposition 1: Although both are family policies, reconciliation policies facilitate women’s employment while financial support policies suppress… Continue Reading
My PhD dissertation titled “Family Policy Outcomes: combining institutional and demographic explanations of women’s employment and earnings inequality in OECD countries, 1975-2005” is now available for download. The dissertation was approved by a committee of 6 renowned scholars, and I will defend it during a public defense on January 10th, 2014. The dissertation addresses how family… Continue Reading
The Journal Sociological Research Online had requested me to write a review on Women and Society: The road to change, a book edited by Ashok S. Kolaskar and Motilal Dash. [The book] presents the personal narratives of 22 professionally successful women in India. This resulted in a collection of diverse chapters, ranging from biographies to… Continue Reading
