Penalise educated stay-at-home women
22 March 2006
AMSTERDAM -- The Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) has proposed recovering part of the cost of study from highly-educated women who decide not to seek paid work.
MP Sharon Dijksma, deputy chairperson of the PvdA's parliamentary party, believes the punitive measure is needed to stimulate more women to join the workforce. She outlined her ideas in Forum, a magazine published by employers' group VNO-NCW.
"A highly-educated woman who chooses to stay at home and not to work - that is destruction of capital," Dijksma said. "If you receive the benefit of an expensive education at the cost of society, you should not be allowed to throw away that knowledge unpunished."
The percentage of higher educated women which are unemployed is quoted at about 9.5% (NOS, the public news agency), less than 100.000 in total. I wonder how many of them are just in their early phase of looking for a suitable job...
Also, I think a "punitive measure" is never a good stimulus. Anything that is punitive is negative. In order to make people want to do something, one should address the issue in positive way.
If they received their education at the cost of society, then the government should be able to enforce a limited period of employment.
I don't see why. Send them a bill perhaps. But then if they do that, they ought to do that to all graduates. Make them all pay or make none of them do.
Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connait pas. - Blaise Pascal
Also, I think a "punitive measure" is never a good stimulus. Anything that is punitive is negative. In order to make people want to do something, one should address the issue in positive way.
I agree. I think such a measure would effectively punish people for going to school. Some students just want to learn things - they don't necessarily want to get a career.
I agree. I think such a measure would effectively punish people for going to school. Some students just want to learn things - they don't necessarily want to get a career.
I have met some of those students. Bring on the punative measures I say!
I fully support everyone's desire for an education, but if you meet a few people who have spent thirteen years doing their Political Science PhD and are nowhere with it, much less Philosophy, you change your mind fairly quickly.
Why should the community pay for this?
Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connait pas. - Blaise Pascal
I have met some of those students. Bring on the punative measures I say!
I fully support everyone's desire for an education, but if you meet a few people who have spent thirteen years doing their Political Science PhD and are nowhere with it, much less Philosophy, you change your mind fairly quickly.
Why should the community pay for this?
I thought university students fund themselves through tuition fees? That's how it is in the UK at least.
I thought university students fund themselves through tuition fees? That's how it is in the UK at least.
Ummm, well let's just say that when I start those were just being introduced. Which dates me a little. I certainly started at a campus with a group of hard core Leftists, theoretically enrolled in Doctoral programs in Women's Studies or PolSci or Philosophy, but really full-time political activists. As soon as they had to pay a few thousand a year they went. The UK only partly charges students for their education - a few thousand when the real costs are probably around twenty thousand a year, depending on the degree. Australia does the same. New Zealand started it. America is more likely to charge full fees. European countries still charge nothing. Which is why the Dutch are concerned. And the experience of Europe is that lectures tend to be at least 100 students, tutorials about 25 or more, and degrees take seven or so years to complete in practice. Why stop having a good time if it is free? In theory I support free education. After having been exposed to it, I say charge any person who is not really really poor the full economic cost of the course.
Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connait pas. - Blaise Pascal
I thought university students fund themselves through tuition fees? That's how it is in the UK at least.
No, the post is actually referring to women who received their education at the expense of the government. This is why I think they should be obligated to work off their debt. If the women actually paid for their education, this would be a completely different story.
No, the post is actually referring to women who received their education at the expense of the government.
Okay.
This is why I think they should be obligated to work off their debt. If the women actually paid for their education, this would be a completely different story.
Fair enough. I can't help but think that it might be fairer to just allow them to pay off their 'debt'. Of course, the work is always there as a highly recommended option.
Also, maybe some of these people genuinely can't get jobs? I know pursuing a career in law for example can be very difficult indeed, degrees be damned.
Fair enough. I can't help but think that it might be fairer to just allow them to pay off their 'debt'. Of course, the work is always there as a highly recommended option.
Also, maybe some of these people genuinely can't get jobs? I know pursuing a career in law for example can be very difficult indeed, degrees be damned.
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