Flexibility makes for a happy Dutch worker

She works three days a week, takes care of her two toddlers the rest of the time and has found the right balance between career and family.

Thanks to the Netherlands' liberal labor laws, workers can choose between a 5-day work week or a shorter schedule with a proportionate pay difference regardless of their reasons.

"In the beginning, it was difficult for me to work less but now I feel comfortable. It gives better balance between family, work and children," said Annelies, 39, who switched to part-time work in public relations after her first child five years ago.

A decade ago, the government, faced with rising unemployment in the 1980s and wanting to draw more women into the workforce, loosened the labor laws.

This gave part-time and temporary workers the same social security and job protection rights as full-time employees, and let permanent workers have more flexible work arrangements such as shorter or longer working hours.

The strategy worked.

Data from Eurostat put Dutch employment at 75 percent in the last three months of 2006, the highest in the 27-member European Union.

The Netherlands, with 16 million people, also led the list in part-time workers, who make up 46 percent of its workforce. Germany was a distant second at 25 percent.

Close to a fifth of the Dutch workforce is on a temporary contract, the data showed.