The Battle against Numbers: Disability Policies in the Netherlands

Over the last twenty years, there has been a vigorous and ongoing disability debate in Dutch social policy over ways of controlling and reducing the number of people claiming disability insurance benefits. Many measures have been taken in this time. A first strategy was to reduce the inflow of claimants, but when this proved unsuccessful, a second strategy to promote outflow by promoting activation of claimants was emphasised. This article presents a review of the measures taken and critically discusses their effects. In addition, it briefly summarises developments in the provision of services, the promotion of equal treatment, and the relationship between national and EU level disability policies. Many new proposals for reducing the number of disability claimants have recently been put forward, but most of these can be described as ‘more of the same’, and their effectiveness is doubtful.