oa Sociale ongelijkheid en kenniseconomie

Knowledge economy and social inequality

Despite the objectives of the EU-Lisbon strategy, the present political focus on the development of a knowledge economy is diverting to some extent attention of policy makers to the problem of social inequality. There is evidence that this is not justified because social inequality hasn't vanished as a social problem in society. On the contrary, in the context of a knowledge economy social inequality not only gets a new topicality, also new social risks appear that are related with a knowledge economy. These new risks easily contribute to a further increase of social inequality of some social groups. They manifest themselves in the areas of labour market, demography and the perception of social safety.

More in particular, with respect to the Netherlands, the inequality of incomes has increased since 1994. Earlier, the long lasting post-war trend towards more incomes equality came to a stand still. Another trend is privatisation of social security provisions. This trend is also reinforced by the new, knowledge economy related, social risks.