Children in the Netherlands

What do you know about the status of children in the Netherlands? This question was posed to us, four freshman sociology students from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. As a disclaimer we want to state that we are not researchers or experts on the Netherlands. Our research was conducted over a two-month period with limited resources. This site will hopefully give you a basic understanding of children's status in the Netherlands with a special focus on discrimination, education, family life and morals.

Children in the Netherlands are well provided for. They have an expansive public education system, and the government provides good health care. There is not an overabundance of poverty, nor is there a rampant problem with youth delinquency. The main issue for children in the Netherlands is childcare. Mothers are traditionally responsible for childcare, while the fathers work, but recently more mothers have been working (full and part time) while they have young children. This causes an increased demand for childcare that the Dutch government has yet to meet. However, as a whole, children in the Netherlands don't have it so bad.

Childhood Status Overview


CIA Map of the Netherlands
Click on the map for more stats on the Netherlands, or click here for more flags.

Where is the Netherlands? The Kingdom of the Netherlands is located between Belgium and Germany in Western Europe. There are 12 provinces in the Netherlands: Drenthe, Flevoland, Friesland, Gelderland, Groningen, Limburg, Noord- Brabant, Noord-Holland, Overijssel, Utrecht, Zeeland, Zuid-Holland along with two dependent areas: Aruba and Netherlands Antilles. The population is 16,067,754, children 0-18 making up 22% of the population. Here's a quick history of the Netherlands: it was created in 1815, and in 1830 Belgium seceded from it and formed a separate kingdom. The Netherlands remained neutral in World War I but suffered massive damage from a brutal invasion and occupation by Germany in World War II. Today, the Netherlands is a modern, industrialized nation, whose main export is agricultural products. The country was a founding member of NATO and the EC, and participated in the introduction of the euro in 1999.

Total Population
 16,067,754
Population Under 5
 937,000
Population Under 18
 3,455,000
Annual Number of Births
 179,000
Infant Mortality Rate
 4.31 in 1000
GNI Per Capita (US$)
 $25,800
Literacy Rate (over age 15)
99%
This data was taken from the CIA World Fact Book and the UNICEF web pages.

We had no prior knowledge of children's status in the Netherlands. All the information we report was acquired by our research or our correspondent in the last two months. Our purpose is to provide a small picture of children's lives in the Netherlands, in hope that it will spark an interest for you to continue with further research.

The Netherlands' Student Researchers The purpose of this site is to inform web users of the status of children in the Netherlands. We are not and do not claim to be experts on the Netherlands. This project was completed with limited resources and time. This site was designed by Lindsey Heines, Melissa Venture, Corey Penedo, and Dane Harbaugh as part of a collaborative web project for the first year writing seminar Children & Society at Tulane University taught by Professor April Brayfield .

References For This Page:

"Country Statistics-Netherlands." retrieved November 22, 2002 (http://www.unicef.org/statis/Country_1Page123.html)

"Netherlands." retrieved November 22, 2002 (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/nl.html)

"Netherlands." retrieved November 23, 2002 (http://www.countries.com/countries/netherlands/)

We would also like to extend our thanks to our international contact, Dr. Liset Van Dijk. Not only were her publications very helpful in our research, but also our correspondences with her helped us to gain a deeper insight into the status of children in the Netherlands.
Updated December 13, 2002
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