PhD Defence Posthumus alumnus Jeroen van Veldhoven

On 7 March 2025, Posthumus alumnus Jeroen van Veldhoven successfully defended the PhD thesis ‘Partijpolitiek en de verschuiving naar flexwerk in Nederland’ [‘Party politics and the shift towards flexible work in the Netherlands’] at Utrecht University. Supervisors were Professor Lex Heerma van Voss (Utrecht University) and Dr Jeroen Touwen (Leiden University).

The Dutch labour market has become increasingly divided between employees with permanent contracts and those on flexible contracts. In this dissertation, Jeroen examines how political choices have shaped this development. How have political parties and trade unions regulated these nonstandard employment contracts, and how can we explain their choices? Jeroen demonstrates that the second oil crisis in 1979 played a crucial role in shaping this trend. In response, employers looked for ways to save costs through flexible contracts. At the same time, many women entered the labour market. Due to caregiving responsibilities and limited work experience, they often ended up in these newly emerging flexible jobs.

When inflation and unemployment led to new political ideas on regulation and deregulation, political support for stricter regulation of on-call work grew, while others pushed for the deregulation of protection of permanent employees’ labour contracts. The trade union movement opposed all forms of nonstandard employment.

As left- and right-wing parties negotiated compromises on the Flexibility and Security Exchange (1996) and the Work and Security Act (2014), awareness of the downsides of the labour market division grew in the 2010s. This shift led to a stronger political focus on reducing the divide. Jeroen argues that this explains why even governments dominated by liberal parties eventually supported stricter regulations for nonstandard work, such as the Labour Market in Balance Act (2019).

The defence ceremony will also be streamed live via the livestream of Utrecht University’s Senate Hall.

The N.W. Posthumus staff congratulates Jeroen with this achievement!