![]() ![]() ![]() However, this is changing a bit as the upper class more and more resemble a US lifestyle. This particular domestic model of social contentment and fulfilment is captured in the word gezelligheid”. The whole Dutch conversational style, in fact, derives from the family emphasis: Dutch families and their visitors are able to carry on for hours a conversation among six to ten people in a circle without once breaking up into individual pair-conversations (the dominant pattern in the U.S., for instance). Living rooms usually have chairs arranged in a tight circle to make conversation maximally easy and intimate. Interiors are normally designed following a custom emphasizing the family circle grouped together. Dwellings, whether assembled into large apartment blocks or in rows, are intended only for the gezin and their typically modest size does not permit much expansion of this. Housing patterns in the Netherlands, including the customary layout of individual houses, accurately reflect the perception of gezin as a family unit as fundamental. The wider sense of a network of relationships is Familie, but the unit of mother-father-children most commonly occupying a single-family dwelling is gezin. There are in fact, two words in Dutch for “family”. Nevertheless, it remains in essence what is sometimes called an ‘introverted family culture’. “Statistical surveys in all Western countries suggest the same disruption and dissolution of traditional family ties and the rejection of old family values, and the Netherlands has not been exempted from this. As the author of The Netherlands in Perspective, William Z. The Dutch make friendships slowly and selectively but, once made, these are generally for life. The Netherlands was named the third best country for work-life balance in a 2011 report from the OECD. The Dutch generally work to rule, that is to say that they have clearly defined working hours and they respect them. ![]()
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