Labour market participation in The Netherlands: A critical review of policies and outcomes

This paper describes trends in Dutch (un)employment from the 1980s onwards, it reviews activation measures that were taken in the field of social security and labour market policies, and it critically discusses the successfulness of these measures. It concludes that it may not be justified to attribute the 'Dutch miracle' - the recent decrease in unemployment and the explosive growth of employment -directly to the measures taken, and that activation policies have endangered the citizenship rights of unemployed and disabled people. Further, the 'Dutch miracle' is put into the perspective of a small employment growth in terms of the total of hours worked annually, the large proportion of part-time employment, and the large degree of hidden unemployment.