16-17 MAY 2001
LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS
Welfare in the Netherlands
* BY CARLA RISSEEUW'The Impact of a Changing Social Welfare System on Social Relations (marriage, family and social networks) in the Netherlands and the Public Debate on this Process' is the theme of an upcoming two-day conference to take place in Leiden on 16 17 May 2001. Over the last fifty years an extensive welfare system has been developed in the Netherlands. With a booming economy, citizenship and economic independence allowed individuals to bypass mediating social units and networks and deeply affected the material dimensions, intensity, and emotional content of personal relationships. In broad terms, this was a general pattern in much of Western Europe.
The Dutch system ranked very high in conferring state benefits by the family unit rather than by the individual. While social legislation transformed inter-generational responsibilities of family members towards each other, policies assumed notions of gender and parenting responsibilities as seen in the concept of the male breadwinner and full-time mother. This lead to an unequal division of benefits within families and earned the Dutch welfare system the reputation of being simultaneously progressive and traditional.
Presentations planned include the following: Prof. Maithreyi Krishnaraj, ICSSR, Mumbai, India, will present her findings on structural shifts and local current debates on (gendered) welfare policies of the Dutch welfare state; Prof. Carla Risseeuw, Leiden University, will present on literature and historical trends in familial relationships in the Netherlands, as well as report on fieldwork-findings concerning ideas on family and friendship in the Netherlands; Dr Rajni Palriwala, Reader at the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, India, will present her findings on the public debate on single parents as well as her fieldwork on single parents primarily within the Leiden municipality; Dr Kamala Ganesh, Reader at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai, India, will focus on the ageing population and their networks (mainly in the Leiden municipality), as well as the public debate on related institutional care services.
Some of the specific issues that will arise pertain to the gendered access to work, income, institutional support state or community based social networks, the paucity of public child care, changing marriage arrangements and inter-generational ties, child custody, financial responsibilities and care arrangements, as well as concepts of relatedness.
Specialists in the field of the Dutch welfare state and (in)formal care arrangements will be invited to respond to the papers presented. *
'The Impact of a Changing Social Welfare System on Social Relations (marriage, family and social networks) in the Netherlands and the Public Debate on this Process' is funded by IDPAD, 1997-2001, and the IIAS.
Professor Carla Risseeuw is an anthropologist with a special interest in India and Sri Lanka. She lectures at the Department of Social and Cultural Studies at Leiden and is also a member of the Academic Committee of the IIAS.
E-mail: risseeuw@fsw.leidenuniv.nl