oa Opvattingen van zelfstandig ondernemers over sociale zekerheid

Self-employment and attitudes toward social security

The number of self-employed workers in Dutch society is increasing rapidly. The usual assumption amongst policy makers and scientists is that these self-employed do not support the social security system. Therefore, the growth in self-employment is argued to be a possible threat to the legitimacy of the social system. Using different research methods, we examine support for social security among the self-employed. A key finding is that employees and self-employed do not have very different policy attitudes. The self-employed are less supportive of unemployment spending compared to employees, but do not have different attitudes to the so-called 'external' risks such as sickness and old-age.