Reconstruction and Reorientation: Changing Disability Policies in the Netherlands and Norway

Abstract

The Netherlands and Norway are among the many countries that have faced serious challenges to the sustainability of their social security systems in recent years. In this article we examine the growth in benefit schemes related to illness and disability since they have been one source of particular concern in both countries. The Netherlands came to face more serious and persistent problems earlier than Norway in this policy area. Our analysis reveals significant differences with respect to the underlying assumptions in the social protection systems for the long-term sick and disabled as they were originally constructed in the 1960s. We identify a general emphasis on ‘integration’ in the Norwegian social policy discourse and legislation up until the late 1980s, whereas the Dutch legislation in the same period tended to focus on autonomy and individual ‘choice’. In the article we compare the reforms introduced in both countries to control the growth in sickness and disability schemes, by means of a common analytical and conceptual framework. ‘Incentives’ have occupied an increasingly prominent position in the policy discourse in both countries. While the Norwegian development may largely be seen as a return to and revival of partly forgotten, partly eroded assumptions behind the original social protection scheme, the Dutch policy shift amounts to a more fundamental reconstruction of the whole social security system.