180 Special Isuue: Work-Family Balance of Families with Small Children I. Introduction In the past few decades, national governments have increasingly introduced and developed work-family policies to support working parents combining paid work and family life, such as parental leave, public childcare, and the right to reduce working hours. While work-family policies are prevalent across most developed countries, large variations exist with respect to the nature and amount of policies (den Dulk and Peper 2016). In the Netherlands, work-family policy development started relatively late, during the 1990s. From a comparative perspective, the Dutch policy con- text is characterized by relatively short leave policies, the part-time use of public childcare services, and poli- cy support for reducing working hours as a strategy for reconciling work and family life. In fact, part-time em- ployment is very common in the Netherlands, in par- ticular among women (Yerkes 2009). Presently, 77％ of working women has a part-time job, compared to 26.4％ of working men (Merens and Van den Brakel 2014). is is by far the highest proportion in Europe. With women more likely to work part-time, the one- and-a-half earner family model, in which the man Work-Family Balance of Families with Small Children: How to Achieve Gender Equality in Parenting Capabilities to Combine Work and Family in the Netherlands: Challenging or Reinforcing the One-and-a-half Earner Model? Laura den Dulk and Mara A. Yerkes Laura den Dulk: Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, the Netherlands E-mail: dendulk@fsw.eur.nl Mara Yerkes: Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80140, 3508 TC, Utrecht, the Netherlands E-mail: M.A.Yerkes@uu.nl Abstract In this article, we assess the extent to which national-level work-family policies in the Netherlands enable vari- ous groups of working parents (men versus women, low versus highly educated, and dependent employees ver- sus self-employed） to combine work and care. We answer this question by conducting a policy analysis using Sen’ s (1992） capability framework. Applying this perspective, we evaluate the availability, accessibility and de- sign of work-family policies in the Netherlands. Moreover, we consider the importance of collective agreements and the organizational context. Our analysis shows that current work-family policies and collective agreements in the Netherlands offer certain groups greater capabilities to reconcile work and care than others. Childcare pol- icy offers less accessibility for the self-employed and flexible work arrangements enable women more than men to take on care tasks and work part-time. In addition, higher educated individuals have greater access to flexible work arrangements than lower-educated workers, but oſten use this flexibility to work more rather than recon- cile work with care. Moreover, current care leave policies enforce rather than challenge existing socio-cultural norms, and alternatives to the one-and-a-half earner model remain limited. Key words: work-family policies, the Netherlands, capability approach 2016, Japanese Journal of Family Sociology, 28(2） : 180 – 192 Special Issue