This article focuses on the laws regarding labour migration of women to the Netherlands. The question raised is how different norms applied to female and male labour migrants with regard to marital status and parenthood are justified. From 1945 until 1968 the law explicitly stated that female labour migrants had to be unmarried and without children. This is illustrated with case-studies of the migration of Philippine nurses and Yugoslavian women to the Netherlands. Although the laws changed in 1979 into gender neutral texts, in practice employers still required female labour migrants to come to the Netherlands without a husband and children. Also, the laws applicable for typical female work de facto limited the opportunity for female migrants to have spouse and children accompany them to the Netherlands. Again two case-studies on the temporary admittance of Asian nightclub dancers in the early 1990s and of Polish nurses at the turn of the twenty-first century illustrate the persisting sex difference in Dutch labour migration law and practice. Throughout the studied sixty years the difference can be explained by traditional family values. After 1979 an explanation can be found in the governments fear for a large influx of migrants and the employers wishes to profit as much as possible from these labour migrants.