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In the past hundred and fifty years the lives of Dutch men and women seem to have become more varied than ever. However, this doesn't mean that before this time their lives were uniform and unchanging. In this book leading scholars describe the lives and times of Dutch men and women born since 1850 and demonstrate/explain their individual differences. - Toonaangevende onderzoekers beschrijven in dit boek de levenslopen van mannen en vrouwen geboren vanaf 1850 en onderzoeken de oorzaken van individuele variatie. Voor dit onderzoek is gebruik gemaakt van de Historische Steekproef Nederlandse bevolking. Honderdvijftig jaar levenslopen - De Historische Steekproef Nederlandse bevolking is de boekaflevering bij jaargang 83 (2008) van het sociaal-wetenschappelijk tijdschrift Mens & Maatschappij. Met bijdragen van Jan Van Bavel, Jan Kok & Theo Engelen; Matthijs Kalmijn; Hans Knippenberg & Sjoerd de Vos; Onno Boonstra; Richard L. Zijdeman & Kees Mandemakers; Ineke Maas & Marco van Leeuwen; Frans van Poppel & Ruben van Gaalen; Hilde Bras, Aart C. Liefbroer en Cees H. Elzinga.

This article compares the differences in salary costs & in productivity between Belgium & Portugal, serving as an EU benchmark for respectively high & low salary states, & those in the three major emerging markets, Poland, Hungary, & the Czech Republic, based on information of individual businesses. The study revealed that between 1995 & 2000 the salary costs in Belgium were seven times higher than in the three emerging markets, & four times higher than in Portugal. Also, there is a positive correlation between high salary costs & high productivity. Furthermore, there is no reason to relocate manufacturing of certain industries from high to low salary member states since certain industries generate high salary costs anywhere. In conclusion, there are indications that the evolution of the salary costs in proportion to productivity in Portugal has a limited negative effect on employment in Belgium, whereas salary costs in the NMS have no significant impact. 5 Tables, 11 References. A. Michaux

Public debates tend to see social inequality as resulting from individual decisions people make, for instance with respect to their education or lifestyle. Solutions are often sought in supporting individuals to make better choices. This neglects the importance of social groups and communities in determining individual outcomes. A moral perspective on social inequality questions the fairness of insisting on individual responsibilities, when members of some groups systematically receive fewer opportunities than others. The essays in this book have been prepared by experts from different disciplines, ranging from philosophy to engineering, and from economics to epidemiology. On the basis of recent scientific insights, World of Difference examines how group memberships impact on individual outcomes in four key domains: health, education and work, migration, and the environment. This offers a new moral perspective on social inequality, which policy makers tend to neglect.

In a test of an earlier study (Cleymans, A., "De niet-aanwezige burger midden de jaren zeventig" [The Non-Present Citizen in the Mid-1970s] in Res Publica, 1985, 1, 140), the structure & selectivity of political participation in the Netherlands & Belgium are compared. Overall political participation since 1973 appears to remain at the same level for a range of ten activities, eg, trying to contact politicians & joining a demonstration. However at the macrolevel, the stability of participation is combined with a constant or slowly rising passive political involvement. The relationship of political involvement & participation with individual & social background characteristics is not very strong in the 1980s. The better educated, leftists, & public employees have the highest participation rates during 1973-1986. Differences between the sexes seems to decrease over time. In Belgium, working outside the home does not appear to stimulate the participation of women; however, in the Netherlands, this factor is of utmost importance. 5 Tables. Modified HA

One of the most important problems in political science is party choice. Choice problems of a general nature have been studied by psychologists & market-researchers. Models from these fields are applied to political choice behavior. Research here was based on the principles of the 'attitude-model', which incorporates cognitive & affective aspects, integrated by means of combination rules. Focus is on identification of central attributes that characterize the 14 Dutch political parties in parliament. This was done by utilizing multidimensional scaling representations & by presenting a set of prespecified attributes to a group of individuals. The investigation pointed out 3 dimensions representing the 14 parties: the leftist-religious & government dimension, the nongovernment group, & a 3rd dimension, which could not be labeled. Discrepancies between these results & those of earlier research are due to differences in methods of data collection. The need for additional information is stressed. 3 Tables, 2 Figures. Modified HA.

Changes in Dutch attitudes towards the European Union For decades, the Dutch were seen as relatively positive towards the European Union. However, in 2005 a majority of the Dutch population voted against the proposed European Constitution. Therefore, in this article we examine to what extent the Dutch 'no' marks a sudden change in attitudes, or is merely a manifestation of a gradual trend that started at an earlier stage of the European integration process. We raise the question to what extent attitudes towards the European Union have changed in the Netherlands, and further ask to what extent these changes can be attributed to characteristics of the context and the life course. We derive hypotheses from theories on the influence of birth cohort, societal context and life course on attitude changes. In order to test these hypotheses, we employ Eurobarometersurveys of 1973 to 2004, as well as additional data at the contextual level. Our findings suggest that in the Netherlands attitudes towards the European Union have become more negative since the early nineties, after becoming more positive in the preceding years. While characteristics of the birth cohort and the life course do not account for these changes, the development towards more political integration seems to provide an interesting explanation. However, even after adding respondents' characteristics at the individual level to our models, variance in attitudes towards the European Union is hardly explained. Even though differences between social groups exist, attitudes towards the European Union seem to be largely unexplained.

The thesis is a qualitative social scientific study of the Dutch political discourse on multi-ethnic society between 1977 and 1995. The central questions are: 1. Have the Dutch political parties' views on minority policy generally changed between 1977 and 1995, and, if so, in what direction? 2. Was in the first half of the nineties more disagreement on this topic than in the eighties? 3. What exactly are the differences of opinion between the parties on the topic of integration of minorities? The research proceeds upon the theoretical assumption that three concepts - including their counterparts - play a central role in the political discourse on the multi-ethnic society: socio-cultural diversity (or homogeneity), socio-economic equality (or inequality), and political-juridical unity (or fragmentation). It is assumed that the perspectives on multi-ethnic society will be seen to differ in the political parties' interpretation and application of these concepts. The object of the research is approached in two ways. First the attitudes towards multi-ethnic society and minority policy are investigated for each political party separately. Next, the viewpoints of the parties are contextualized by examining the standpoints of the parliamentary groups of the parties in parliamentary debates on important government documents concerning minority policy. In addition the reactions of major minority organisations on these government documents are analyzed. A short answer to the first question is, that in general the viewpoints of the major political parties has shifted from a preference for a multicultural and group-oriented policy of emancipation in the eighties, to a preference for a more obligatory and individual-oriented policy of socio-economic integration in the nineties. An reply to the second question is, that in the political discourse under scrutiny, the consensus between the main political parties about the minority policy has increased rather than decreased. In order to answer the third question, in the conclusion a classification is made of the political parties' perspectives on integration that stresses the socio-economic, the socio-cultural and the political-juridical dimensions.