Beyond the Dutch Miracle? Challenges to and Responses of the Dutch Welfare System

This chapter explores how the Dutch welfare system has evolved in the last decade(s). It shows that the economic crisis and the process of demographic change have put the Dutch welfare system to the test. The surmounting pressures from 2007 onwards have revealed structural problems of the Dutch welfare system, such as sustainability of pensions and health care systems, increasing dualisation in the labour market and challenges in reconciliation of care responsibilities and (full-time) employment. Although the Dutch corporatist consensus-driven policy-making has been able to take some action in reforming social security and social services towards the needs of the ‘participatory society’, the paradigmatic policy changes remain unpopular and (still) few in actual numbers. In conclusion, the legitimacy of the welfare state in the Netherlands remains strong, but the actual consequences of the ‘great recession’ are yet to materialize