Dutch fathers are becoming more vocal. A crop of recent books and Web sites advise men on combining career with family. Last year, a women’s magazine, Lof, set up the “Working Dad Prize,” which went to a man who won a court case against his employer enforcing his right to work part time.

The government awarded its own “Modern Man Prize” for breaking gender stereotypes. Rutger Groot Wassink won for co-founding a campaign that promotes part-time work for men — and for working four days a week himself. “Men have been excluded from this debate for too long,” said Mr. Wassink, noting a poll showing that 65 percent of Dutch fathers would like to work less.

Part-time work imposes its own rigidities. When so ubiquitous, part-time work “locks many people in,” said Janneke Platenga, professor of economics at Utrecht University. “When everyone at your daycare center works part time, do you really want to send your child five days a week and have him taken care of by several different teachers?”

At the Olefantje daycare center in Utrecht, only a handful of some 120 children come five days a week. Most teachers work four days, some three. One, Mary Chisham, takes pride in doing without daycare: she has her son Fridays, her husband, a car salesman, Mondays, and the other three days the grandparents are in charge.

“Three days is the maximum a child should spend in daycare,” she said, a view echoed in dozens of interviews with women and men.

The Netherlands may be famously liberal — marijuana is tolerated and prostitutes can join a union — but traditional gender stereotypes are strong, and for years, a labor code that empowered employees to reduce their hours has reinforced them by encouraging women to take time off during their child-bearing years.

At 70 percent, Dutch female employment is high — but Dutch women work on average no more than 24 hours a week. They earn 27 percent less than men and 57 percent are considered financially dependent, earning less than 70 percent of the gross minimum wage, or €997 a month — the equivalent of $1,300. Only four of 20 members of the current cabinet are female and 60 percent of the companies listed on the Amsterdam Euronext have no women on their boards.