[Tarsul]

the law (or a more employee-friendly change to the law) came to pass last year (2019). The law gives employees much better chances to follow through, because it's now up to the employer to prove that part time is economically unfeasible for the employer. Before, if you wanted to go from full-time to part-time it was much more about hoping that your boss was understanding and having to argue etc. (although women with children usually had very good chances and usually in Tarif-Verträgen it is included that they can do part-time, so in big industries/companies it was easy for women already, at least those with children). I think in the Netherlands part-time is even more common; I've read somewhere that 50% of the people do part time - and most of them (unlike in the US) do it because they want to (80% of women there work part-time; 20% of men work part-time, so as a whole 50% do).