An Impact Assessment of Policy Measures to Influence the Gender Division of Work

In this study, two different approaches, within one theoretical framework, were used to assess the impact of some public policy measures on the division of paid and unpaid work in the Netherlands. The first (macro-level) approach was based on the views of a panel of national experts; the second (micro-level) approach consisted of the analysis of information provided by members of households in a representative survey. In general, the results of the two studies indicate that the relevant policy measures have little, if any, impact on actual behaviour. In the survey study, the only variable that had a strong impact on both men's and women's behaviour was an attitude variable: egalitarianism. However, we conclude that the combination of methods, i.e. of the retrospective Delphi study with the cross-sectional survey, leads to better insight into the impact of the policy measures than each of the separate methods.