Objective: there are regional differences in the organization of local Youth Teams, that have been given a crucial role in delivering Youth Care since the transition of Youth Care in 2015. The aim of this article is to examine the influence of the organization of Youth Teams on several aspects of their functioning.
Method: self-managing teams in Holland Rijnland and teams in The Hague that are led by a team manager are compared on several aspects of team functioning. This mixed-methods study is based on an online questionnaire among 237 professionals and interviews with 32 professionals. Quantitative data have been analyzed by conducting a t-test of group means, qualitative data by means of framework-analysis.
Results: the organization of Youth Teams seems to influence certain aspects of the perceived team functioning. For example, professionals in the self-organizing teams Holland Rijnland experience more self-management and more informational elaboration. However, there are also similarities on several aspects. Professionals from both regions have similar expectations of leaders.
Discussion: municipalities and Youth Care organizations should be aware of the influence of the organization of Youth Teams on team functioning. Future research must demonstrate which aspects of team functioning contribute to improved care for families.

This paper lays out a proposal for a basic income system for the elderly. The proposed basic income allows elderly people to retire from the work place, or to keep on working (full time or part time). In the latter case employers are allowed to take part of the basic income into account in calculating the wages for their older workers. This characteristic makes employing older workers financially more attractive to employers. On the other hand, the basic income enables workers in physically and/or mentally challenging jobs, which are mostly low-paid jobs, to quit their job early. The effects on the government budget are calculated, based on different assumptions on the labour-participation effects of such a basic-income system. If the starting age of the basic income is 60 years and if the system incites older workers to increase their labour participation, introducing a basic income can have minor effects on the government budget. On the other hand, if the basic income has the same the labour-supply effects as the previous, but far more generous early-retirement schemes, the budgetary effects can be strongly negative. With a starting age of 65, however, positive budgetary effects can be obtained relatively easy.

Despite notable progress, women remain heavily underrepresented in virtually all layers of the Dutch political system. Only one in three Dutch MPs is currently female. The Minister of the Interior has recently made a number of suggestions to increase gender diversity in politics, in light of 100 years of active voting rights for women. Gender in politics is about much more than the number of women though: it is about the role and position of women in politics as well as about the uneven gendered influence of politics. This introduction discusses the importance of focusing on women and gender in politics, and introduces the four contributions to this Dossier. We specifically call for an intersectional perspective and the various dimensions of gender in and of politics.

Celebrating 100 years of women’s suffrage in 2019 is an excellent reason to reinvigorate the debate on the position of women in politics and public administration in the Netherlands. In this essay, we look at trends and figures, as well as discuss the measures that Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations Kajsa Ollongren puts forward in her recent letter to Parliament: (1) inclusive selection and selection procedures; (2) actively inviting and recruiting candidates; and (3) good equipment for political office. We try to inform the debate about the position of women in politics with new insights and knowledge from academic research.

The man-woman ratio in municipality councils in the Netherlands varies tremendously. Why does local politics attract women in some municipalities but not in other? The author attempts to answer this question by conducting interviews with municipality clerks and female council members of municipalities where the man-women ratio is even and municipalities where men are in the overwhelming majority. Additionally, the author conducts seven in depth interviews with former local and regional politicians about their motives to quit. Based on the interviews the author concludes that the political culture varies locally, making feel women more or less welcome. Sexist comments were mentioned several times, more often coming from respondents who worked in councils where men were in the majority. Finally, the balance between work, local politics and family life was often mentioned as a major hurdle for young parents (both men and women) for becoming or staying politically active. The author suggests to explore ways to change the political culture, to combat sexism and to find ways to reduce the workload in order to create more equal access to the local political arena.

This article reflects on the proposed measures of the Dutch Government to increase the number of women in the Dutch public administration. Based on the lessons learned from the practice of the public sector, this study concludes that there is still much work to be done with regard to female participation in the Netherlands, but when it comes to the ethnic minorities, the situation is alarming. Politicians directly elected by the citizen, such as MPs and councillors, do see a representation of the ethnic diversity of society. Where the citizen has no direct influence, such as the king’s commissioners, mayors, and aldermen, the percentages are zero or slightly higher than zero. It is argued that mechanisms such as selection procedures are hindering gender and ethnic diversity at the top of the public organizations. It is, therefore, suggested that introducing quota could bring more diversity in public administration.

In 2019, throughout The Netherlands, 100 years of women’s suffrage was celebrated. This celebration is historically incorrect: the voting law from 1919, broadly seen as the law that gave all Dutch women the right to vote, was a discriminatory law. It excluded many women – mostly those living in the former colonized parts of the Kingdom of The Netherlands – for decades after the laws implementation. This article shares a more complete history of women’s suffrage in The Netherlands, through the history of the voting law in the entire Kingdom of The Netherlands. The article gives insight into how this historical political exclusion still contributes to a lack of representation of many women in The Netherlands.