Conclusions: Women’s Work and Divergent Development in the Dutch Empire

This concluding chapter argues that the divergence in women’s work patterns in the Netherlands and Java related largely to increasingly varying standards of living in both parts of the empire. These developments partly resulted from intentional colonial policies, but many changes were unforeseen, and perhaps even undesired, consequences of how colonial relations evolved. Also, it is evident that links with colonialism were much more direct and influential in Java, and much more indirect in the Netherlands. Still, to understand why in the Netherlands the participation of married women in the labour market declined much faster than in Java, and also notably faster than in other West European countries, it is vital to study the role and particular character of Dutch colonialism. The Dutch managed to implement a relatively extractive colonial regime, in terms of taxation and labour services (most prominently through the Cultivation System). This had implications not only for changes in women’s work in Java and the rest of the Dutch East Indies, but also for developments in the metropole.