That's not true in my experience -- at least in the Netherlands. My friends and family have wages that would be considered low in the US, but they live very comfortable lives and many of them work four days a week.
I looked it up and the average work week in the Netherlands is apparently 29 hours a week [0]. The average inheritance in the Netherlands is €23K [1], and as another commenter mentioned many people don't receive an inheritance until they're in their 40s or 50s.
So many people in the Netherlands are able to live a comfortable live while working part-time, without having to
rely on an inheritance.
EDIT: However, as you pointed out, rising housing costs are an increasing issue in the Netherlands. The issue is that not enough houses are being built. I hope that that's something that'll be addressed soon.
> EDIT: However, as you pointed out, rising housing costs are an increasing issue in the Netherlands. The issue is that not enough houses are being built. I hope that that's something that'll be addressed soon.
This is often said but I'm not sure it's true, I'm not sure if housing costs rising is really because of too few houses being built.
There's a few things to untangle. First is housing costs. They've not actually risen so dramatically as people think. Home prices have increased, but interest rates have sharply decreased. From a peak of 13% in the 80s, to 5% prior to the 2007 crisis, to around 1% today.
To put that into perspective for a 30 year mortgage: in the 80s on a 13% interest rate, you were paying the full mortgage price every 7 years, just in interest alone. Today, you pay the full amount in interest alone just once every 100 years.
Second, nominal prices increase a lot, but nominal wages do, too.
The better approach to look at housing costs is not to look at prices (which the media and regular folks go crazy about), but a simple indicator: % of wages spent on housing. And this metric hasn't really gone up radically. It's been on the rise again recently, but it's also below historical peaks.
But then we still don't know if we simple don't have enough homes, or enough homes to satisfy new desires and cultural norms. I think it's the latter. The number of homes in the Netherlands has outpaced population growth the past 50 years. The number of households has also outpaced population growth. And the average number of people per home has decreased. And the average home size has only increased. In other words, it's not necessarily a housing problem, it's more of a luxury problem, at least when compared to the past. We've got more housing per person than ever, yet we feel as if housing is unattainable. In large part that's because we don't want to share housing as much anymore. There's a ton of people, even in relationships, who prefer to have their own home instead of share like Dutch people did much more in past generations. That's okay, I do too (and live by myself, I prefer it), but that's a choice of luxury, not some kind of human right. Home-ownership has never been higher.
Lastly, there's location. You can have a trillion square metres but if it's not in Amsterdam, we'll still have people say there's rising housing costs because they can't live in Amsterdam. There's actually a lot of affordable real estate in the Netherlands, it's just not going to be in the capital in cycling distance from work. And again, that's a choice/preference, not a human right. Living say 45m or an hour from work is seen as a lot in the Netherlands, in many countries that's quite normal. A lot of what we see as high housing-costs in the Netherlands, are considering prime locations. When talking about affordability, with Dutch public infrastructure, you'd have to look at 30-60 minutes away from work. Most of that real estate is very affordable.
That's not to say housing costs aren't on the rise or that it's all fine or without any issues... there's definitely issues. But I think a bit of nuance is important, too. People (not you necessarily) act as if the Netherlands has a housing crisis and sometimes it gets overblown.
As for your link on inheritance, I think median figures would tell a very different story. I'd guess that the bottom 50% inherits basically nothing, and the top 30% a lot. Many of my friends who went to uni have parents who own a home that's >500k, a pension fund, investments, some cash. A lot of these will at some point be getting a very large handout that basically covers their retirement goals and means they really don't have to do any kind of saving on the side (apart from the employment pension package) and can spend every penny they earn. That technically also allows people to work less.
Anyway, so much for the pedantics.... On your larger point, I fully agree. It's absolutely quite possible and quite normal too, to work parttime, even those without any inheritance. I currently work 40 but I could easily do 32, even 24, financially speaking.
I looked it up and the average work week in the Netherlands is apparently 29 hours a week [0]. The average inheritance in the Netherlands is €23K [1], and as another commenter mentioned many people don't receive an inheritance until they're in their 40s or 50s.
So many people in the Netherlands are able to live a comfortable live while working part-time, without having to rely on an inheritance.
EDIT: However, as you pointed out, rising housing costs are an increasing issue in the Netherlands. The issue is that not enough houses are being built. I hope that that's something that'll be addressed soon.
[0] https://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2013/07/10/worlds... [1] Source in Dutch: https://www.evivanlanschot.nl/kennis/geldzaken/erfenissen-fe...