Conferences

There is a growing interest in social cohesion and social capital in the Netherlands. Issues like cultural assimilation, attitudes towards ethnic minority groups, the role of the Islam and its impact on public life are in the news almost every day. The Dutch government is willing to take a substantial number of measures to enhance social cohesion in Dutch society and has made social cohesion one of the six pillars of the government policy in 2007. Similarly, the subject of social cohesion and social capital is high on the international agenda. In line with this development, Statistics Netherlands (SN) aims to publish more statistical information on social cohesion.

Social cohesion is, however, an ambiguous and multidimensional concept of which no single universal definition is available. SN has therefore recently developed a framework for measuring social cohesion, consisting of three dimensions: (1) participation (social participation, participation in organisations and participation in politics), (2) trust and (3) integration. This framework is used to provide integrated statistical information based on both registers and large-scale survey data. The Population Register contains information on age, sex, ethnicity, place of birth, place of residence, marital status and other information for all registered persons living in the Netherlands. This registration has been available since 1995, and is updated monthly. Linking this longitudinal register information to data from the social surveys and other registers creates the Social Statistical Database (SSB). The SSB thus encompasses data on all Dutch citizens based on longitudinal register information as well as cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys, and contains both individual as well as context information.

In the presentation, the measurement of social cohesion by making use of various statistical sources in the SSB will be discussed. One example is volunteering work based on some 1 million records in the Labour Force Surveys, linked to the ethnic diversity in municipalities and neighbourhoods. A further example concerns social cohesion in the neighbourhood (e.g. contacts with neighbours) defined in the Security Monitor from 2005 onwards. Also, a new survey module on social cohesion to be included in the new design for the social surveys in 2010 at SN will be discussed.