PhD on Care for Young Children and Gendered Division of Labour

We invite applications for a PhD position in the SCOOP research centre on sustainable cooperation. As a PhD candidate you will be working on a project entitled “Sticky Practices: The co-evolution of early years childcare, parental leave and women’s labour force participation” under the supervision of Sarah Carmichael, Robert Vonk and Tanja van der Lippe. The project aims to look at how the care of young children is arranged, and what this means for gendered division of labour.

Wat ga je doen?

Early childhood education and care is a topic that receives attention both for its contributions to improving later schooling and development outcomes of the children themselves, and as an essential service for working parents (as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic). Reliable and widely available childcare is also essential to enable women’s work in particular. However, how this is provided, what the uptake is and what the further impact is on parental working patterns differs across countries. Given current Dutch proposals to make childcare free or heavily subsidised, this topic is pertinent to assess policy. This project aims to look at how (pre-)school childcare institutions have co-evolved with norms around mother’s work, maternity and paternity leave, postnatal care, etc. You will compare several countries representing a number of different child-care provision regimes and parental leave arrangements over the long-term to determine how various critical junctures have affected outcomes today. This will be done by research into the historical evolution and path dependency of these norms and arrangements.

You will conduct research into the history of childcare services and norms using a variety of sources and case-studies but with the Dutch case as the point of departure. In practice this means you will:

• conduct research in archives in the Netherlands as well as abroad;
• establish a systematic collection of data on childcare norms, policies and financial arrangements;
• attend and prepare material for PhD training sessions offered via SCOOP as well as via the Posthumus institute
• present research findings and national and international conferences;
• help with knowledge dissemination activities of the findings of the project both within and outside academia;
• publish peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

Wat breng je mee?

• You hold a Master's degree in a relevant field (e.g history, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science or related discipline but with experience in historical research) at the time of taking up the appointment.
• You have excellent command of spoken and written English.
• Preferably you have a working knowledge of written Dutch in order to be able to conduct research on Dutch source material.
• Experience conducting historical archival research is an asset.
• Basic knowledge of statistics would be helpful but not a prerequisite.
• You are able to work independently as well as within a team setting and take initiative where needed.

Wat bieden wij?

• a job for for 18 months starting 1 September 2024, with an extension to a total of four years upon a successful assessment in the initial period, and with the specific intent that it results in a doctorate within this period;
• a working week of 38 hours and a gross monthly salary between € 2.770,- and € 3.539,- in the case of full-time employment (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.