Challenges and Risks of Individualisation in The Netherlands

This article evaluates recent transformations in social policy that reflect the tendency towards individualisation in The Netherlands. Such transformations have taken place in old age pensions, widows’ pensions, social assistance and taxation, and in respect of child support following divorce. Interestingly most reforms have not resulted in ‘full individualisation’, but rather have taken into account the fact that people, in particular women, are not or cannot be assumed to be full-time adult workers. Such a ‘moderate individualisation’, however, is not without risks for women’s economic independence, especially when the developments of the Dutch ‘life course perspective’ on social security are considered.