Dutch Households Research Articles

Opvattingen over gender en het opvoeden van kleine kinderen voor en na de eerste lockdown in Nederland

Attitudes about gender and the care for small children before and after the first lockdown in the Netherlands The COVID-19 pandemic has led to major changes in the division of paid and unpaid work in many Dutch households. Before the pandemic, work-care patterns were relatively traditional in the majority of families in the Netherlands, with women performing more unpaid tasks and men more paid work. These patterns were disrupted during the lockdown by the obligation to work from home and formal and informal childcare being unavailable. This meant that fathers were much more exposed to care and household tasks than before the pandemic. This effect was potentially reinforced by the fact that many ‘essential workers’ in education and healthcare were female, leaving their male partner to take over (extra) care tasks at home. But did these changes in the division of tasks also affect normative attitudes about gender and care? In this study we aim to answer this question using longitudinal data collected among 300 respondents in the Netherlands before (early 2019/2020) and after (July 2020) the first lockdown. We expect that attitudes about men’s caring capabilities have become more positive in partnered men and women if the male partner was working from home. The empirical results show that attitudes about gender roles regarding child rearing have become more traditional after the lockdown and this is particularly the case for men who worked from home while their partner continued to work outside the home.

High Infection Secondary Attack Rates of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Dutch Households Revealed by Dense Sampling.

BackgroundIndoor environments are considered one of the main settings for transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Households in particular represent a close-contact environment with high probability of transmission between persons of different ages and roles in society.MethodsHouseholds with a laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 positive case in the Netherlands (March-May 2020) were included. At least 3 home visits were performed during 4-6 weeks of follow-up, collecting naso- and oropharyngeal swabs, oral fluid, feces and blood samples from all household members for molecular and serological analyses. Symptoms were recorded from 2 weeks before the first visit through to the final visit. Infection secondary attack rates (SAR) were estimated with logistic regression. A transmission model was used to assess household transmission routes.ResultsA total of 55 households with 187 household contacts were included. In 17 households no transmission took place; in 11 households all persons were infected. Estimated infection SARs were high, ranging from 35% (95% confidence interval [CI], 24%-46%) in children to 51% (95% CI, 39%-63%) in adults. Estimated transmission rates in the household were high, with reduced susceptibility of children compared with adolescents and adults (0.67; 95% CI, .40-1.1). ConclusionEstimated infection SARs were higher than reported in earlier household studies, presumably owing to our dense sampling protocol. Children were shown to be less susceptible than adults, but the estimated infection SAR in children was still high. Our results reinforce the role of households as one of the main multipliers of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the population.

Do households prefer to move up or down the urban hierarchy during an economic crisis?

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between adverse economic circumstances and the desire of Dutch households to move up or down the urban hierarchy. We apply three consecutive waves of the Dutch Housing Demand Survey (WoON) in a repeated cross-section setting, with data collected at the time of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and its aftermath. We find that households desire to move down the urban hierarchy during the volatile and uncertain periods following the GFC. This is a surprising result, given that urban areas are generally considered more opportunity rich. In order to uncover the mechanisms driving this result, we considered the impact of the economic circumstances on the general willingness to move and on the underlying motives. We find that willingness to move increased when the adverse economic consequences of the GFC hit Dutch households. Further, it appears that this willingness to move is only partially related to work. Besides work, desires to move for health, education, vicinity to family and friends, and reasons related to the dwelling, also become more prevalent during the aftermath of the GFC as well. This heterogeneity in impacts and consequences for household desired mobility serves to explain some of the mixed results in the literature, and generates lessons for current and future crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dutch COVID-19 lockdown measures increased trust in government and trust in science: A difference-in-differences analysis.

Many governments have implemented strict lockdown measures to prevent the transmission of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Compliance with these restrictions is vital and depends greatly on the level of trust in the institutions central to their development and implementation. The objectives of this study were to assess: (1) the effects of the Dutch lockdown measures imposed in March 2020 on trust in government and trust in science; and (2) whether these differ across social groups. We draw on unique data from the high-quality Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences panel, which comprises a true probability sample of Dutch households (average participation rate: 80.4%). Our data were collected on an ongoing basis from December 2017 to March 2020 (n=2219). Using the implementation of lockdown measures in mid-March as a natural experiment, we employed difference-in-differences analyses to assess the causal effect of the Dutch lockdown measures on trust in government and trust in science. We estimated that the imposition of the measures caused an 18% increase (95% confidence interval (CI):15%-21%)) in trust in government and a 6% increase (95% CI: 4%-8%) in trust in science. The impact on trust in government was greater among the participants aged 65 and older and those with poor self-assessed health, although the relevant CIs were wide and, in the case of self-assessed health, included the null. No differential effects were observed for trust in science. Our study indicates that the strict public-health measures imposed in the Netherlands during an acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic generated trust in the institutions involved in drafting and implementing them, especially among those with a higher risk of serious health outcomes. This suggests that, to prevent a major public-health crisis, people appreciate firm government intervention during the acute phase of an infectious disease pandemic.

Populist Attitudes, Fiscal Illusion and Fiscal Preferences: Evidence from Dutch Households

Populist Attitudes, Fiscal Illusion and Fiscal Preferences: Evidence from Dutch Households

The Impact of Providing Information about the ECB's Instruments on Infation Expectations and Trust in the ECB: Experimental Evidence

We use a random controlled trial among Dutch households to analyze whether communication about monetary policy instruments impacts inflation expectations and trust in the ECB. All participants in the survey receive information about the ECB’s goal, but only a subset also receives information about how the ECB tries to achieve this. Our results suggest that individuals who are informed about policy instruments have inflation expectations closer to the ECB’s target inflation than individuals who only receive information about the ECB’s objective. Our evidence also indicates that communication about the ECB’s instruments does not impact average trust in the ECB.

Trust in Finance and Consumer Fintech Adoption

We study the impact of trust in traditional finance on the consumer adoption of various fintech products, including cryptocurrencies, peer-to-peer lending, other crowdfunding, roboadvisors, and alternative payment solutions. Using a representative survey of Dutch households, an experiment on Amazon's MTurk and an experiment on an investment website, we nd no consistent evidence that trust in finance affects fintech adoption in any product category. Our results suggest that consumers consider fintech products to be distinct from traditional financial products.

Cinderella! Cinderella!: A closer look into Dutch seventeenth-century gender roles and genre paintings

This article highlights a time when Northern artists were no longer allowed to paint or carve holy images as they had done during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Catholic Church banned this art form due to the interpretation of the second commandment: ‘Thou shalt make no graven image of thy God’. Genre paintings were the outcome of this banishment and a way to represent and depict an everyday life scene in a Dutch seventeenth-century household. The paintings would show the best of a situation and also its worst counterpart in almost a mocking comical way. By exploring these paintings, we come to understand how women were fed propaganda into becoming a better housewife, mother and bearing the weight of physical nourisher to all. Although amusing, the images have been celebrated and considered legendary during the Golden Age of the Netherlands. While taking a closer look at genre paintings and the everyday practices of the Dutch household, we can connect patterns to how these paintings affected women and influenced their domestic duties in the Golden Age.

Political trust during the Covid-19 pandemic: Rally around the flag or lockdown effects?

How can we explain the rise in diffuse political support during the Covid‐19 pandemic? Recent research has argued that the lockdown measures generated political support. In contrast, I argue that the intensity of the pandemic rallied people around political institutions. Collective angst in the face of exponentially rising Covid‐19 cases depresses the usual cognitive evaluations of institutions and leads citizens to rally around existing intuitions as a lifebuoy. Using a representative Dutch household survey conducted over March 2020, I compare the lockdown effect to the dynamic of the pandemic. I find that the lockdown effect is driven by pre‐existing time trends. Accounting for non‐linearities in time makes the lockdown effect disappear. In contrast, more flexible modelling techniques reveal a robust effect of Covid‐19 infections on political trust. In line with an anxiety effect, I find that standard determinants of political trust – such as economic evaluations and social trust – lose explanatory power as the pandemic spreads. This speaks to an emotionally driven rally effect that pushes cognitive evaluations to the background.

Demanding expectations: Exploring the experience of distributed heat generation in Europe

In this study, we advance thinking around microgeneration for heat, moving debates on from issues of adoption and performance to bring richer and more sophisticated understandings of how and why households install and live with renewable energy technologies. We draw on a study with 32 households in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, presenting qualitative data collected through an online photo journal to provide insights on the subjective experience of microgeneration for heat technology. We identified a tension between the installation and operational phases of microgeneration for heat systems highlighting that routine, daily domestic practices were at least, if not more, important than the building fabric when seeking to deliver energy savings. This tension was common to both United Kingdom and Dutch households and all microgeneration for heat types, although more pronounced for those with biomass systems. We also explore how householders’ ideas of the future impact on the use of and demand for microgeneration for heat systems; with United Kingdom participants more likely to anticipate greater demand and have systems they felt were ‘over capacity’. We argue that householders’ perspectives, particularly in relation to expectations around future energy demand, are generally overlooked in renewable energy research.

Statistical Literacy Affects Risk Perceptions and Behaviors during the COVID-19 Pandemic

We study the role of statistical literacy in interpreting COVID-19-related information, assessments of infection risk, and compliance with mobility restrictions. Using a large-scale panel survey of about 4,000 Dutch households, we find that more statistically literate people adjust their risk estimates more strongly to the actual infection risk, measured by the current number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in their home province. They are also generally more likely to socially distance, less concerned about their own infection risk, and more concerned about infecting others, especially vulnerable populations such as the elderly. We also find that more statistically literate people generally consider a flu shot more important, potentially suggesting a more positive attitude toward vaccines.

Consumption Uncertainty and Precautionary Saving

Using survey data from a representative sample of Dutch households, we estimate the strength of precautionary saving by eliciting subjective expectations on future consumption. Expected consumption risk is positively correlated with self-employment and income risk and negatively with age. We insert these subjective expectations (rather than consumption realizations, as in the existing literature) in an Euler equation for consumption and estimate the degree of prudence by associating expected consumption risk with expected consumption growth. Robust OLS and IV estimates indicate a coefficient of relative prudence of around 2. We obtain similar results via partial identification methods using weak assumptions.

Efficient transmission of viral gastroenteritis in Dutch households

Efficient transmission of viral gastroenteritis in Dutch households

Development and Evaluation of the Eetmaatje Measuring Cup for Rice and Pasta as an Intervention to Reduce Food Waste.

Of all of the stages in the supply chain, more food waste comes from households than any other sector. A Dutch composition analysis showed that the solid food waste (including sauces, fats, and dairy products) from household waste amounted to 48.0 kg per person per year (in 2013), of which 5.0 kg consisted of cooked rice and pasta. These two product groups were numbers 1 and 3 in terms of relative waste: 34% of the purchased quantity of rice and 23% of that of pasta was wasted. Using questionnaires, we discovered that Dutch consumers mainly throw away food because they prepare too much of it. The same is true for rice and pasta because they increase greatly in volume when cooked. The water uptake ratio of rice is 2.5 (2.3–2.8) and that of pasta is 1.8 (1.5–2.3), which increases the chances of consumers overestimating portions. In 2013, more than half of the people surveyed did not measure pasta and rice portions. In view of this, the Netherlands Nutrition Centre developed a measuring cup called the Eetmaatje, which is marked with the recommended volumes for Dutch adults for different types of pasta and rice in terms of dry weight. The theoretical reduction of food waste the Eetmaatje provides is calculated to be ~6% for pasta and 21% for rice, or 12.5% combined. Between 2014 and 2019, more than 1.6 million Eetmaatje cups were distributed for free among Dutch households. Over that period, the measuring of pasta and rice by Dutch households increased. Most people (85–89%) in a panel of consumers who own an Eetmaatje think it is handy or very handy to use. The majority of those in the panel (50–80%) say that they use the Eetmaatje most times when they prepare a meal. Four out of five of those in the panel (77–87%) are convinced that the Eetmaatje helps them waste less pasta and rice. The Eetmaatje functions as a nudge to change cooking behavior and thus food waste behavior. Consumers who measure their pasta using the Eetmaatje self-reported that they produced less total food waste. The measured household waste of cooked rice and pasta seems to show a downward trend since the introduction of the cup. There is strong evidence that the Eetmaatje has increased the number of Dutch households measuring rice and pasta and thereby reducing food waste.

Togetherness in the Household

Spending time together with a spouse is a major gain from marriage. We extend the classical collective model of the household to allow for togetherness between spouses. Togetherness takes the form of joint leisure and joint care for children. Using revealed preferences conditions, we find that Dutch households are willing to pay €1.2 per hour - 10% of the average wage - to convert private leisure to joint, and €2.1 per hour to convert private childcare to joint. Our results suggest that togetherness is an important component of household time use despite it being overlooked in the economics literature.

Skating on Thin Ice: New Evidence on Financial Fragility

This paper analyzes the financial fragility of Dutch households by examining their ability to raise 2,000 euro within a month in case of a financial emergency. Using data from a survey module fielded in 2016 in the CentERpanel, we document that one in seven Dutch households is financially fragile. Moreover, some demographic groups, specifically females, single person households, renters, low-income households, the lower educated and the unemployed are more likely to be financially fragile. While a majority of households would use their savings to cope with a financial emergency, a noticeable fraction of households would resort to other methods, such as relying on family and friends or borrowing using credit cards. Financial literacy, confidence in financially literacy skills and probability numeracy are all associated with financial fragility as well as with the methods people use to cope with an emergency. These results support previous findings on the importance of financial knowledge and numerical ability for financial decision making.

A decision tree method for explaining household gas consumption: The role of building characteristics, socio-demographic variables, psychological factors and household behaviour

This research aims to develop a decision tree model for understanding actual gas consumption in residential buildings. Extending previous studies, this study examined to what extent four different type of factors, building characteristics, socio-demographics, psychological factors and household behaviour can explain actual gas consumption of Dutch households in 2017 and 2018. Data were collected from 601 households. A novel approach, a decision tree method, revealed that household gas consumption was related to building characteristics, socio-demographics, and psychological factors, while energy-related behaviour in households was not uniquely related to gas consumption. Specifically, house size, building age and residence type (building characteristics), household income and employment status (socio-demographics), and most notably egoistic values, hedonic values, environmental self-identity, perceived corporate environmental responsibility of the energy provider, and social norm (psychological factors) predicted total actual household gas consumption. These results illustrate that the novel integrated framework introduced in the paper yields a better understanding of actual household gas consumption. The results have important practical implications and suggest that it would be important to target these three type of factors in policy aimed to reduce household gas consumption.

Airborne Rodent Allergen Levels in Dutch Households: A Pilot Study.

Little research has been conducted in Europe regarding indoor exposure to airborne rodent allergens. The aims of this study were to gain insight into the prevalence of rodent allergens in airborne dust in Dutch households, to assess whether there is a relationship between rodent sightings and detectable allergens, and to identify risk factors associated with the presence of rodent allergens. Airborne dust was collected from the living rooms of 80 households distributed around central Netherlands by passive sampling using electrostatic dust collectors (EDCs). Samples were analysed for mouse (Mus m 1) and rat (Rat n 1) allergens. Participants completed a questionnaire on household and building characteristics, household pets, cleaning habits and ventilation. Mouse allergen was more prevalent than rat allergen and mouse sightings within the past year more than doubled the odds of detectable mouse allergen. Proximity to green areas, ventilation through an open window and insulation under the living room floor were determinants for detectable mouse allergen. Conversely, proximity to surface water was protective. No significant association was found between asthma and detectable mouse allergen. The passive EDC sampling method was used successfully to detect mouse and rat allergens in homes. The presence of mouse allergen was associated with previous mouse sightings. Risk factors and protective factors associated with the presence and levels of mouse allergen were identified.

Determinants of airborne rodent allergens in Dutch households

Determinants of airborne rodent allergens in Dutch households

A Comparison of Households’ Energy Balance in Residential Smart Grid Pilots in the Netherlands

This paper presents an analysis that frames the impact of various smart grid technologies, with an objective to provide a transparent framework for residential smart grid demonstration projects based on predefined and clearly formulated key performance indicators. The analysis inspects measured energy data of 217 households from three smart grid pilot projects in the Netherlands and a public dataset with smart meter data from 70 households as a reference. The datasets were evaluated for one year and compared to provide insights on technologies and other differences based on seven key performance indicators, giving a comprehensive overview: monthly electricity consumption (100–600 kWh) and production (4–200 kWh); annually imported (3.1–4.5 MWh) and exported (0.2–1 MWh) electricity; residual load; peak of imported (4.8–6.8 kW) and exported (0.3–2.2 kW) electricity; import simultaneity (20–70.5%); feed in simultaneity (75–89%); self-sufficiency (18–20%); and self-consumption (50–70%). It was found that the electrification of heating systems in buildings by using heat pumps leads to an increase of annual electricity consumption and peak loads of approximately 30% compared to the average Dutch households without heat pumps. Moreover, these peaks have a high degree of simultaneity. To increase both the self-sufficiency and self-consumption of households, further investigations will be required to optimize smart grid systems.