AMSTERDAM, (Reuters):
WOMEN WHO choose not to work should pay back part of the costs of their education, a Dutch opposition politician was quoted as saying yesterday.
"A highly educated woman who chooses to stay home and not to work: that is destruction of capital," Sharon Dijksma, deputy leader of the opposition Labour party in parliament, told the employer organisation's magazine, Forum.
EXPENSIVE EDUCATION
"You enjoy an expensive education, paid for by society, and you cannot throw away this knowledge without a penalty."
Dijksma said demanding such a refund was a logical extension of Labour's plans to demand that university students pay for their education based on how much they earn later.
"If somebody chooses not to work, that still needs to be paid back," Dijksma said.
A general election is due in May 2007 and Labour is well ahead of the ruling Christian Democrats in opinion polls.
Only one in four Dutch women works full time, mostly those who do not have children.
But easy access to part-time work has helped to almost double women's participation in the Dutch labour market between 1980 and 2004, according to OECD data, ranking it among the highest in the industrialised world.
