Talent development begins where work and care come together.

Bregje Feuth and Mirte Wibaut, authors of the book Who cares?, demonstrate that this is where real opportunities lie. Not by organizing work and care separately, but by better aligning them. What does that mean for organizations that want to grow and retain female talent?

A question no one asks

The mission of Bregje and Mirte can be summarized simply: more equality between parents. But how that mission came about reveals much about how entrenched the patterns are. They say the actual turning point was an interview for a documentary by filmmaker Liesbeth Staats. The title of that series: Why don't women work? "We immediately said: you should actually be asking why men don’t care. That’s the much more urgent question. That seed was then planted.”

Since then, that question has become increasingly central to their work. While the labor participation of women has been rising for decades, the participation of men in unpaid care has barely changed. Women work more, and men hardly care more. That may sound like an old story, but the numbers don’t lie. Over two decades, women with children have increased their working hours by 15 hours per week. Men with children have only increased their care hours by 0.4 hours per week during the same period.

These figures come from the Emancipation Monitor of the SCP, which is maintained biennially. The most recent time-use research that mapped male care participation ran until 2015–2016.

"What these numbers reveal is how we have practically arranged work and care. And where there’s still room to better align them. They show how we have defined 'equal opportunities': as a work issue, not as a care issue. Half of heterosexual couples want to share it equally. Only 9 percent succeed. This is not a matter of good intentions. It’s a systemic issue," says Mirte.

What care truly means

In our society, care is quickly narrowed down to a list of practical tasks: making sandwiches, picking up and dropping off children, keeping the calendar. The mental load – the planning and management of all that – has gained more attention, say Bregje and Mirte. But there’s a deeper layer that remains almost completely invisible. "Emotional care is the most fundamental and also the most meaningful part of caring. For both the giver and the receiver. It’s completely reciprocal. And it’s entirely invisible," says Bregje.

"This invisibility has consequences," she continues. "As long as care is not defined – and the only definition that we, as a society, attach to it is that it’s a 'burden', a collection of tasks – people commonly fall into the same pitfalls. And everyone ends up in an unequal distribution, even if they never intended to."

Moreover, you don’t start loving someone and then begin to care for them. It works the other way around. You come to love someone because you care for them. That’s not sentiment; it’s demonstrable. If you invest your time and attention in another, a deep, intertwined bond emerges that you cannot buy. Care is therefore not a burden. It’s what life is all about.

Men want it differently, but the system doesn't support them

A common misconception is that men don't want to care more. The reality is more nuanced. Research shows that half of men want an equal share in work and care. The barrier lies elsewhere.

Men that Bregje and Mirte spoke with for their book often want to approach it differently than their own fathers did. But they still define 'care' too narrowly. They don’t count emotional availability as a caring task and sometimes not even as something that fits their capabilities.

"When you ask them about their fathers’ emotional availability, the light often goes on. Then that absence suddenly becomes very palpable. That realization is a start. But awareness alone is not enough. The system makes it practically harder for men to fully take on that role. They legally receive less leave, and they also have to pay for that leave. With the best intentions in the world, you can’t get there," says Mirte.

Neuroscientific research makes this even more evident according to Bregje and Mirte. “When you look at the brain structures of fathers who are the primary caregivers, you see exactly the same changes in the emotional brain as with mothers who care. It is not gender that determines how you care. It’s the time you invest in it. And men get – and take – that time much less.”

What organizations (unconsciously) perpetuate

The workplace plays an important role in how work and care come together and therefore also offers opportunities to better support that balance. Pregnancy discrimination only affects women. Taking partner leave is discouraged. And men who continue to work full-time after the birth of a child sometimes even get promoted.

Behind these patterns is also a psychological mechanism. Men have internalized the breadwinner role so much that they experience the threshold for taking leave as enormous. Mirte: “At the same time, most colleagues think more progressively than they express. As long as no one speaks up, everyone quietly goes for the conservative choice.”

“That 'doing it out loud' applies to employers as well. Actively promoting the importance of leave. Showing that care matters,” Bregje urges.
This asks courage from employers, but it also delivers something. “Employees who can activate their care brain become better at their work. They filter out noise faster, they communicate more clearly, they develop more empathy. These are proven benefits for work culture AND for business results.”

What employers can do tomorrow

Big policy is not the only way. There are concrete steps that organizations can take immediately:

• Supplement the leave shortfall. The UWV reimburses 70 percent of the salary during partner leave. Employers who supplement that to 100 percent significantly lower the financial threshold.
• Actively encourage taking leave. Not just communicating the rules, but explicitly encouraging employees to take the leave.
• Hold meetings during office hours. Avoid scheduling early or late meetings. Consider that people have other tasks at the edges of the day.
• Lead by example. Leaders who take leave themselves or leave early for children normalize that behavior for the rest of the team.

Mirte: “The answer lies in both policy and behavior. It’s a systemic problem that requires systemic solutions. But behavior change and awareness are indispensable in that. Especially because much of what is at stake is still insufficiently visible.”

Talent development starts earlier than you think

Women already prepare for less work before the birth of their first child. Not always because they want less, but because they anticipate what is to come. And even when the distribution starts off well, you see that around the child’s fourth birthday, the role distribution has nonetheless become skewed. Further than parents had anticipated. "You want to keep all the balls in the air with all your energy and the best intentions in the world. And at some point, you think: that isn’t going to work,” Mirte explains.

But there is also a misunderstanding lurking here. Bregje: “Talent development does not only take place in the workplace. Who cares, learns. Empathy, patience, the ability to respond to the needs of another, dealing with uncertainty; these are all skills that are intensively practiced in caring for children. Women may be missing career opportunities. But nothing is lost in talent development in the broader sense.”

This does ask something from organizations: to recognize and acknowledge that growth. And to not see care experience as an interruption in a career but as a deepening of it.

What is at stake

“If organizations continue to do the same thing in five years, everyone will hit a wall. Not just women. The pressure on unpaid care is increasing: elderly people are living at home longer, and the participation society places more responsibility on households. If that care continues to fall unevenly on women, it will have consequences for the labor market, for employee well-being, and for society as a whole,” begins Mirte.

On the other hand, there is enormous untapped potential among men. Men who care more become better at their work, have deeper relationships, and a stronger bond with their children. One in three couples divorces, and one in five divorced fathers never sees his children again as adults. That’s 20 percent. That risk increases when the couple maintained traditional role patterns during the relationship and when fathers spend less time with their children. And this already starts with the choices made or not made in the early years of a child’s life.

"Becoming a problem owner sounds heavy. But actually, it’s a gift. When men see what they stand to gain, their lives get better."

That’s the essence of the book Who cares? written by Bregje and Mirte. Not an indictment. An invitation. To look differently at what care is, what it yields, and who all benefits when we organize it differently. In the workplace, at home, and in society as a whole.