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Labour Market Flexibility and Pension Reforms pp 203–230Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Netherlands: Reconciling Labour Market Flexicurity with Security in Old Age

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Part of the book series: Work and Welfare in Europe ((RECOWE))

Abstract

The Netherlands is regularly praised in international policy circles for two central aspects of socio-economic policy: its multi-pillar pension system and its ‘flexicurity’ reforms. The Dutch multi-pillar pension approach has a long tradition, but flexicurity is a more recent policy innovation. Enhancing labour market flexibility has been a core element of the overhaul of labour market policies that resulted, at least in part, in the ‘employment miracle’ of the 1980s and 1990s (Visser and Hemerijck, 1997; see also Becker and Schwartz, 2005; and Van Oorschot, 2002). This remarkable turnaround stands in sharp contrast to the economic malaise of the 1970s and early 1980s, when the Netherlands was a classic case of ‘welfare without work’.

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Authors
  1. Karen M. Anderson
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen, Germany

    Karl Hinrichs

  2. University of Milan, Italy

    Matteo Jessoula

Copyright information

© 2012 Karen M. Anderson

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Cite this chapter

Anderson, K.M. (2012). The Netherlands: Reconciling Labour Market Flexicurity with Security in Old Age. In: Hinrichs, K., Jessoula, M. (eds) Labour Market Flexibility and Pension Reforms. Work and Welfare in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230307605_8

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