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In Europe, the reduction of acute care hospital beds has been one of the measures implemented to restrict hospital expenditure. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the effect bed reductions have on the use of the remaining beds within different healthcare systems. We concentrated on two healthcare system elements: hospital financing system (per diem and global budget systems) and physician remuneration system (fee-for-service and salary systems). We also controlled for technological development and demand for healthcare. We used data from the OECD health data files of 10 North-Western European countries on hospital bed supply and use. The hospital bed indicators used were occupancy rate, average length of stay and admission rate. The data were analysed with multilevel analysis. We found some indication that the different financial incentives of hospital financing systems do indeed influence hospital bed use in the case of reductions in acute care hospital bed supply in different ways. However, we found significant effects only for the hospital bed use indicators 'occupancy rate' and 'admission rate'. For physician financing systems, no significant effects were found. Keywords: Hospital financing systems; Physician financing systems; Hospital bed reductions; International comparison; Healthcare systems

Various factors influence the division of child care among mothers, fathers, and nonparental care providers in Dutch two-parent families. The factors that influence child care include mothers' potential wage rates, the number of children and the norms of the family members. Quality and availability of institutionalized care influences the choice of the mothers' care, but is ineffective on fathers' child care timings. The spouse with highest earning potential is likely to spend less time in child care. Also economy, gender roles, and education play a vital role in deciding division of child care.

A model developed to account for the division of household and paid labor between partners confirms focus on decisions partners can take as a useful way of merging sociological and economic research patterns. Major factors include relative wage ratio, age of the youngest child, norms of the network, number of children and year of birth. The demands of social norms are inversely related to the responses of partners of relative wage rates.

Both the Netherlands and other European countries are involved in the transition from a breadwinner society towards a more individual-oriented society. What is unique in the Dutch case is the strong emphasis on the equal sharing of time, between paid and unpaid work as well as between women and men. Despite the preferences among citizens for a more equal sharing of paid and unpaid work, in practice it appears that general participation in paid labour is being achieved more rapidly than general participation in unpaid labour. The article looks at the obstacles and sticking points which stand in the way of the process of redistribution and investigates how this process can be accelerated. It includes an empirical analysis on survey data for the Netherlands with respect to both actual and preferred working hours for married and cohabitating men and women. The authors conclude that a consistent government policy is lacking. As a consequence neither individuals nor organizations get signals that might contribute to those steps in the area of part-time work, child-care provision and leave facilities that would bring about a redistribution of paid and unpaid work between women and men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a model explaining the division of paid and household labor between partners. Inadequacy of understanding by previous studies; Integration of sociological and economic approach; Use of `preferences-constraints-behavior' scheme; Interaction between relative wage rates and social norms.

We develop a model to explain the relationship between unemployment and labour-force participation by males and females in The Netherlands. Following recent advances in the literature, a distinction is made between temporary and permanent unemployment. Our findings indicate that male labour-force participation is significantly influenced by the temporary unemployment variable, while permanent unemployment does not seem to play a significant part. For females we find the opposite.
This article focuses on the relationship between unemployment and labour force participation rates of males and females in the Netherlands. A distinction is made between permanent and temporary unemployment. It is found that in the case of men, labour force participation is significantly and negatively influenced by the magnitude of temporary unemployment, and that the permanent rate of unemployment does not seem to be a significant explanatory variable of male labour force participation. In the case of women, participation is not influenced by the magnitude of transitory unemployment, whereas the permanent rate of unemployment does seem to exert a significant negative influence. In terms of Clark and Summers (1982), this means that we find predominance of persistence elements in the case of women and predominance of timing elements in the case of male labour market behavior.[1]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]