Apart from constituting the country’s most powerful political force during most of the twentieth century, the welfare attitudes of the three Christian democratic parties have arguably diverged more over time than those of the other major political groups in the Netherlands. Despite subtle differences, up to World War ii all three parties displayed a markedly conservative welfare stance that, among other things, centred on the need to maintain a strict link between benefit entitlement and individual contributory effort.¹¹ During the first decades of the post-war period, however, this stance gradually gave way to a more solidaristic welfare outlook. What makes this transformation even more puzzling is that the redistributive consequences of these solidaristic policies – as the following section will show – were largely carried by middle class groups, who, because of their key voter position, are often viewed as the main beneficiaries of solidaristic welfare reform.¹²

These redistributive consequences certainly make it difficult to attribute this transformation to electoral and strategic considerations, as much of the literature on post-war Dutch welfare state development has done. Recent studies on the importance of electoral systems for redistribution have, for instance, attributed the solidaristic welfare stance of the Dutch Christian democrats alternately to their inability to ‘govern without [...] the social democrats’ and to ‘the electoral strength of the liberal and conservative right [which] pushed the Christian Democrats to the left’.¹³ Others have specifically focused on increased electoral competition over the working class vote with the left after 1945, arguing that this gradually forced the kvp, chu and arp to adopt a more solidaristic welfare stance.¹⁴ One of the main problems with these views is that for centrist and large catch-all parties, that aimed to represent all members of their religious denomination regardless of their economic profile, the solidaristic welfare stance was as likely to constitute an electoral risk as an opportunity for credit claiming.¹⁵

To be sure, they did have a clear electoral incentive to increase the overall benefit levels of programmes that catered to major labour market risks, as doing so benefited the vast majority of the electorate. Yet, the Christian democrats arguably did not have a clear electoral incentive to adopt a progressive financing system, opt for universalist schemes, broaden coverage levels to include fragile groups, choose a rights-based approach, or even loosen eligibility rules. After all, while such measures benefited groups with a weak position on the labour market, they by no means benefited the majority of voters – or even, as we will see, wage earners. In fact, as the costs of welfare provision were mainly financed through taxes on labour income rather than through taxation on capital, middle class groups could be expected to carry a substantial part of the costs of the redistributive consequences of these measures. In other words, as the Christian democrats aimed to represent middle and higher income groups as well as less well-off voters, they lacked a clear electoral incentive to pursue a solidaristic welfare course that was specifically designed to cater to the latter. Had there been such a clear electoral incentive, then their ideological counterparts in other European countries would undoubtedly have adopted a more solidaristic welfare stance as well. But, they did not, and the conservative welfare stance of major Christian democratic parties such as the German Christlich Demokratische Union and the Italian Democrazia Cristiana are commonly seen as having been partially motivated by the need to placate middle class interests.¹⁶

How then are we to explain the solidaristic welfare stance of the Dutch Christian democrats? One possible explanation may lie in the longstanding coalition between the Catholic kvp and social-democratic Partij van de Arbeid (Labour Party, PvdA) in the immediate post-war period. Indeed, in countries like Germany and Italy such coalitions were notably absent in this period. Moreover, the need to placate its coalition partner must surely have had an impact on the kvp.¹⁷ Nevertheless, there are various reasons why this explanation is insufficient too. First of all, in Belgium similar coalitions did exist, but they did not prevent the Christian democrats there from maintaining a more conservative welfare stance, nor did the Dutch Christian democrats reverse course after the collapse of the ‘Roman-red’ coalitions in the 1950s.¹⁸ Secondly, there is the problem that these coalitions may also have been the outcome as opposed to the cause of converging welfare views. After all, and contrary to recent interpretations, the Dutch Christian democrats were by no means unable to govern without the left. In fact, they consistently held an absolute parliamentary majority up to the late 1960s.¹⁹

Finally, any explanation that centres on the logic of party politics neglects the central importance of labour unions in shaping Christian democratic welfare views in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Over the years, many scholars have noted that because of their complex and technical nature, interest groups such as labour unions and employer associations can always be expected to play a major role in discussions about eligibility and financing rules, coverage levels, universalism, and the degree of low-income targeting. All of these issues are key factors in establishing the direction of solidaristic welfare reform.²⁰ Moreover, because of the peculiarities of the Dutch political landscape and the ideological persuasions of the Christian democrats, this involvement was particularly strong and formalised in the Netherlands. One of these persuasions was their emphasis on the need to involve the legitimate representatives of workers and industry in all aspects of policy-making that affected them, which obviously included social insurance reform.²¹ This resulted in the emergence of a corporatist mode of policy-making under which the ‘social partners’ often negotiated the main outlines of social insurance reform leaving parliament to merely ratify their recommendations.²²

Of course, this form of policy-making could only emerge because labour unions and, to a lesser extent, employer associations maintained such close links with their ideological counterparts in parliament. Herein lay a crucial difference between the Netherlands and other Christian democratic-ruled societies during the first decades of the post-war period. In some of these countries, like in Germany and Italy, there simply was no powerful Christian democratic union movement that could steer the Christian democrats in a more solidaristic direction.²³ In countries where they did exist, like in Belgium, occupational cleavages between workers were more strongly entrenched than in the Netherlands, preventing labour unions there from taking a strong solidaristic stance.²⁴ While a systematic comparison of these countries lies outside the scope of this article, the following analysis will point to important differences between the Netherlands and other Christian democratic-ruled societies in this period. Furthermore, it will illustrate the crucial formative role of the cnv and kab in persuading their political counterparts to adopt solidaristic welfare solutions during key points in time.

The article will further show that the cnv’s and kab’s ability to do so depended on their close political bonds with the main Christian democratic parties. It also depended on the fact that their welfare proposals, while solidaristic, were much more acceptable to the Christian democrats than the ones initially put forward by the left. By adopting positions that proved acceptable to both the Christian democrats in parliament, the social-democratic labour unions and party, and the business community, the cnv and kab actually played a central intermediary role in the coming about of the corporatist bargains that were of such major importance in steering the direction of reform. In addition, as we will see, some of these proposals were significantly more solidaristic than the proposals favoured by social democratic officials.

The assumption that Christian democratic parties generally supported conservative welfare solutions that primarily catered to the interests of middle and higher income groups largely rests on two empirical claims. The first is that Christian democratic parties tended to oppose tax-financed programmes that provided benefits as a matter of right and instead pushed for an actuarial, insurance-based system under which benefit entitlement strictly depended on individual contributory effort. The second claim is that Christian democratic parties often pursued segmentalist welfare strategies by creating or maintaining separate group schemes for higher paid wage earners. According to some scholars, these segmentalist strategies were specifically designed to ‘divide wage earners’ and to obtain the electoral support of the middle class and higher paid wage earners.²⁵

If this second claim were true, it is puzzling that none of the main Christian democratic parties in the Netherlands decided to pursue such segmentalist strategies in the immediate post-war period. Instead, all of them supported the position of the Van Rhijn-committee, a workgroup created during the Second World War and chaired by chu-member Aart van Rhijn, that spoke in favour of creating a single, uniform old age pension for all wage earners.²⁶ All three Christian democratic parties confirmed their support for this position immediately after the war. As they represented voter constituencies that resembled those of their European counterparts in socio-economic terms²⁷, it is somewhat puzzling that they refrained from pursuing segmentalist strategies. After all, these strategies would have protected salaried employees and other middle class wage earners, like skilled manual workers, from having to display solidarity with workers who had a weaker position on the labour market.

A plausible explanation for this puzzle is that the segmentalist stances of their foreign equivalents were not the result of a deliberate strategy at all, but resulted from external pressure instead. In Belgium for instance, the Christelijke Volkspartij’s (Christian People’s Party, cvp) support for the maintenance of separate welfare schemes for manual and white-collar workers clearly related to the latter’s opposition. This was expressed by the confessional Landelijke Bediendencentrale (National Organisation for White-collar Workers, lbc), who spoke of ‘unjust welfare solutions’ based on ‘forced solidarity with manual workers’.²⁸ As the lbc opposed the coming about of a single, uniform pension scheme for all wage earners, so did the main Christian democratic union federation too, the Algemeen Christelijk Vakverbond (Confederation of Christian Trade Unions, acv), at least up to the mid-1950s, when it changed its stance. This move was subsequently condemned by the lbc as ‘an effort to rob white-collar employees’.²⁹ Given the acv’s initial opposition to pension unification, it is unsurprising that the cvp opposed it as well. The support of the German cdu for the maintenance of separate schemes for manual and white-collar workers likewise related to segmentalist white-collar lobbies.³⁰

In the Netherlands, by contrast, no similarly active segmentalist union lobby existed. During the late 1940s, some public sector unions had reportedly expressed concerns about their inclusion in a statutory unemployment insurance scheme, pointing out that their members occupied ‘relatively secure positions’, but that their voices had been overruled by the main labour union federations.³¹ These labour union federations were the cnv and kab, as well as their socialist counterpart, the Nederlands Verbond van Vakverenigingen (Dutch Confederation of Trade Unions, nvv), whose organisational density roughly equalled that of the cnv and kab combined. As all of these federations supported mandatory membership for all wage earners in a single and uniform scheme, and even came to favour the inclusion of the self-employed during the early 1950s³², none of the political parties in the Netherlands saw a need to pursue a segmentalist welfare strategy.

Because of the strong political links with their Christian democratic counterparts, the solidaristic welfare stance of the cnv and kab is particularly noteworthy here. This stance directly resulted from the inclusive nature of both federations. Contrary to, for instance, their German and Belgian counterparts, the cnv and kab did not allow salaried employees and other privileged wage earner groups to organise themselves separately from workers with a weaker position on the labour market. Instead, the cnv and kab organised their members on a strictly industrial basis and emphasised the importance of broad worker solidarity.³³ So too did the nvv. And while some unaffiliated labour unions organised their members on an occupational basis, these unions were organisationally weak, did not maintain formal links with any of the major political parties, and did not participate in any of the major corporatist bodies – at least not during the crucial era of post-war welfare state expansion.³⁴ As a result, they had little influence on socio-economic policy-making.

The broad consensus on the need to opt for a uniform old age pension scheme in the immediate post-war period set the Netherlands apart from all other Christian democratic-ruled societies in Europe and facilitated the formation of a solidaristic old age pension scheme that redistributed resources among different groups of wage earners. Additionally, and importantly, it opened the possibility of creating a fully universal pension scheme that catered to wage earners, as well as the self-employed. In countries like Belgium and Germany, the existence of separate group schemes for different categories of wage earners made sure that the inclusion of the self-employed in a single scheme was out of the question. In these countries, progressive forces instead limited themselves to advocating the creation of a single scheme for all wage earners. They did so with varying levels of success.³⁵

The question of whether to include the self-employed in the new old age pension scheme would eventually lead to much political debate, most of which took place within the three Christian democratic parties themselves. But first, another important question needed to be tackled: how to create a system of old age pension provision that could cater adequately to all wage earners, including the lowest paid? For the left, this question was an easy one. Just like its pre-war predecessor, the newly constituted PvdA and its political ally, the nvv, argued for a tax-financed, rights-based approach to the old age pension. For the kvp, arp and chu, such an approach was anathema. kvp-leader Carl Romme succinctly reconfirmed his party’s longstanding opposition to a ‘state pension’ in the immediate post-war period by arguing that it conflicted with the need to preserve workers’ sense of personal responsibility and the need to limit the role of the state.³⁶ The arp, through its social insurance spokesman Antoon Stapelkamp, explained its opposition by underlining that offering benefits ‘not as a right but as a favour’ was simply ‘unworthy of workers’.³⁷

Like the chu, these parties consequently reconfirmed their longstanding preference for a contributory, insurance based approach. Yet, they realised very well that such a system could not cater adequately to larger groups of wage earners. Firstly, many wage earners simply did not earn enough to be able to afford paying for adequate benefits out of their monthly salary. Secondly, and as aptly demonstrated by the experience of wartime occupation, a system under which benefit entitlement depended completely on individual savings had the obvious drawback of not being able to protect old age pension savings against inflation. It was partly for these reasons that the left argued for tax-financing. Another advantage was that tax-financing would make it easier to include the self-employed and that it would redistribute income at the expense of business and the truly rich in favour of the poorer members of society.

The question of how to deal with this dilemma led to much internal discussion in the three Christian democratic parties. Within the largest of them, the kvp, hardliners such as Romme took a very different position than young newcomers like the rising economist Gerard Veldkamp. Veldkamp would become minister of Social Affairs some two decades later and argued in favour of partly severing the link between benefit entitlement and individual contributory effort.³⁸ Although less well-documented, opinions within the arp and chu varied as well. This is not surprising: Christian democratic parties in Europe were characterised by the presence of progressive and conservative wings that held strikingly different views on how to proceed with regards to welfare reform. After all, these were large catch-all parties that catered to voters from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds.³⁹ The main difference between Christian democratic parties in other countries and the kvp, arp and chu was that the latter maintained close ties with strong and solidaristic union counterparts that insisted on the need to gradually adopt a more solidaristic welfare stance, while the former did not.

The success of the cnv and kab in persuading these three parties to do so was obviously facilitated by their close political bonds and membership of corporatist advisory bodies such as the Sociaal-Economische Raad (Social-Economic Council, ser). Yet while these conditions were undoubtedly important, it is questionable whether they would in themselves have been sufficient to persuade conservative backbenchers like Romme of the need to adopt a more solidaristic welfare stance. Had the cnv and kab, who were clearly bothered by the deficiencies of a purely actuarial system, for instance adopted the nvv’s preference for a tax-financed pension, then it is unlikely that they would have been able to persuade a majority of Christian democratic backbenchers to support their welfare views. The resistance to a ‘state pension’ was simply too strongly entrenched within the three parties for that to happen.

Crucially, the two Christian democratic union federations did not espouse support for a tax-financed pension and remained committed to a contributory approach. Stapelkamp, for example, who so strongly rejected a state pension as being unworthy of workers, had done so not merely in the name of the arp, but had actually made this statement as chair of the affiliated cnv.⁴⁰ The kab likewise reconfirmed its pre-war opposition to the social-democratic nvv’s tax-financed solution. Contrary to the nvv, and in line with their political counterparts, the cnv and kab also made it clear that they wanted to maintain the flat-rate nature of the existing pension that had been created in the pre-war period. According to them, a government mandated pension would only provide a minimum level of protection, leaving it up to the unions and employers to negotiate additional supplementary provisions.⁴¹

At the same time, both federations were convinced that a purely actuarial approach was untenable and that it was necessary to introduce solidaristic elements into the old age pension system. To do so, they collaborated with the nvv in the Raad van Vakcentralen (Council of Trade Union Federations), a platform designed to facilitate a joint union stance on all matters relating to socio-economic policy-making. In June 1951, discussions within this platform led to a joint union proposal. They proposed to maintain the contributory system, but added that the pension was to operate not on the basis of individual funding under which workers literally saved for their retirement, but on the basis of pay-as-you-go funding under which pensions paid out today are financed by revenue collected that day. The latter required a centralised system of revenue collection and, crucially, enabled the unions to opt for a progressive financing system that combined flat-rate benefits with earnings-related contributions. They further proposed that all employers would be obliged to offer occupational pension plans to their workers.⁴²

The proposal was clearly a compromise between Christian democratic and social democratic union views. According to internal nvv notes, the cnv had initially voiced some displeasure about contributions being collected by the central authorities.⁴³ In addition, some within the cnv seem to have expressed doubts as to whether mandatory occupational pension membership was ‘morally just’ and ‘practically possible’.⁴⁴ Nevertheless, the Protestant labour union federation eventually accepted that a progressive financing system required centralised collection. Concerns about the practicality of mandatory occupational membership were not sufficiently strong to argue against this requirement. Like the kab, the cnv consequently set out to convince its political counterparts to accept the joint proposal. It did so during the second half of 1951.

When the proposal was discussed in parliament that year, it was heavily criticised by conservative Christian democratic backbenchers who, among other things, took issue with its centralised nature. Some time earlier, various kvp-ministers had already expressed their dissatisfaction with the notion of mandatory membership of old age pension schemes for the self-employed, which was also part of the unions’ proposal.⁴⁵ This criticism did not immediately dissipate. When the ser finally gave advice about the unions’ proposal in May of 1954, its three Catholic state-appointed members still rejected it as a ‘state-collectivist system’. These members not only expressed dissatisfaction with the centralised system of collections, but also with the inclusion of the self-employed, for which they believed there was ‘no legal basis’. Furthermore, they rejected a progressive financing system because they feared that this might ‘in a few years [...] lead to proposals for tax-financing’, even though this was exactly what the cnv and kab had wanted to prevent from coming about.⁴⁶

Still, the influential Raad van Overleg (Council for Consultation), a platform of Catholic civil organisations, supported the ser’s advice, as did the ser’s Protestant state-appointed members. The employer federations also backed the recommendations of the ser, which was even more important given the value that Christian democratic backbenchers placed on the involvement of industry. The employer federation’s support was motivated because of two reasons. First of all, according to the unions themselves, the employer federations preferred the unions’ proposal to a rivalling government plan that had been put forward by the then minister of Social Affairs, Dolf Joekes. Despite being a social democrat, Joekes’ proposal was much less solidaristic than that of the unions. His plan did not provide provisions for an automatic adjustment of benefits to prices and wages, even included a means-test, and combined flat-rate benefits with flat-rate contributions – which meant that it did not redistribute income in any way. The inclusion of a means-test would entail that any savings, including on private pensions, had to be depleted before contributors were entitled to the state benefit, meaning that the scheme effectively ‘grabbed’ what these pensions remitted.⁴⁷ Consequently, it conflicted with the employer federations’ top priority, namely, that the new system was not to hinder the development of private pension schemes in any major way.

Secondly, the union federations accepted that the new pension scheme was to be completely financed by wage earners themselves. They did so on the insistence of the cnv and kab. While the nvv had initially demanded employer co-financing in order to make sure that business bore part of the new pension scheme’s costs as well, the Christian democratic union federations argued that ‘there was no legal ground’ for employer contributions. In their view, the insurance principle demanded that wage earners were themselves responsible for financing old age pension provision.⁴⁸ This stance obviously greatly facilitated the employer federations’ willingness to support the proposal made by the union. Equally important is the fact that it fitted well with the Christian democratic parties’ emphasis on the need to preserve workers’ sense of personal responsibility. As a result, these parties came to lend their support to the ser’s advice as well.

The fact that it took over a year for the government coalition – which included all three Christian democratic parties – to put forward an old age pension bill following the publication of the ser’s advice, suggests that it took some time before these parties gave their support. In all three of the confessional parties internal opposition persisted against the introduction of a pension scheme that was state-administered, that included the self-employed, and that deviated so clearly from actuarial principles. In the eventual bill, benefit entitlement would be completely severed from contributory effort and instead depend on the number of years in which citizens had resided in the country. One of the most outspoken critics was Willem Aantjes, who would join the arp’s executive committee in 1957 and was to become party leader in 1973. Aantjes complained that none of the ser’s Protestant state representatives had objected to what ‘in essence constitutes a state pension’ even though ‘the rejection of state totalitarianism has always been less absolute in Catholic than in Calvinist thinking’.⁴⁹

But, following the publication of the ser’s advice, these critiques had become the minority view. During parliamentary discussions about the government’s bill, the social insurance experts and representatives of all three parties instead emphasised their satisfaction about the preservation of the old age pension programme’s insurance nature. chu delegate Henk Kikkert and future kvp leader Wim de Kort both voiced their appreciation for the government’s ability to preserve the programme’s insurance nature. arp spokesman Stapelkamp did lament the fact that a central administrative agency, the taxation service, was to be made responsible for the collection of contributions. However, he regarded this as an acceptable price to pay for a proposal that was based on ‘solidarity among different societal groups’.⁵⁰ The bill was eventually accepted by parliament without a roll call in March 1956 and the new pension act came into effect the following year. Only two backbenchers, both of whom belonged to the small orthodox Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij (Reformed Political Party), opposed the bill.

By lending their support to the bill, the three main Christian democratic parties showed that they were by no means opposed to welfare proposals that redistributed income in a major way, even when key constituents stood to lose from them. Indeed, as the new scheme was mostly financed by wage earner contributions, the costs of solidarity disproportionally fell on middle class wage earners. At 6.75 percent of the wage bill, the contribution rate was significant and the existence of a contributory wage limit that was set at roughly 200 percent of the average wage ensured that the pension scheme mostly redistributed funds away from middle class wage earners towards low income contributors. In addition, these wage earners were forced to pay for the incorporation of low-income self-employed groups, who were exempted from having to pay contributions. As the self-employed constituted around 25 percent of the population at the time, roughly half of whom were partially or completely exempted from having to pay contributions, this subsidy was significant. In other words, for middle class wage earners, the old age pension bill constituted a rather poor deal.

Given the supposed privileged electoral position of these groups, this outcome may at first seem puzzling. After all, as noted earlier, it is generally assumed that because of their median voter position middle class wage earners are always major beneficiaries of solidaristic welfare reform.⁵¹ The fact that, in this example, the opposite was the case, suggests that electoral considerations were much less important in shaping party views on welfare than is generally assumed. The sheltered position of the Christian democrats and the lack of visibility of the policy-making process in the Netherlands provided the kvp, arp and chu with substantial discretion to deviate from the interests of key parts of their constituents. Contrary to countries like the United Kingdom, where major welfare initiatives were often proposed by individual parties and subsequently became the subject of intense electoral scrutiny before they were enacted⁵², both the pace and content of welfare reform in the Netherlands were largely determined by corporatist involvement. Electoral scrutiny was limited. The 1952 parliamentary elections are a case in point as there was no discussion of the union proposal that would eventually pave the way for the enactment of the old age pension bill. During subsequent elections in 1956, the bill had just passed parliament. Despite the adverse redistributive consequences for them, there was no backlash against the three parties among middle class voters.⁵³

Nor do representatives of the three parties seem to have displayed major concerns about these consequences. While some conservative Christian democrats may have expressed reservations about the scheme’s redistributive features, there is no documented evidence suggesting that they did. The evidence that comes closest to this is found in the aforementioned remarks by the ser’s three Catholic state-appointed members, who, as we saw, deplored the decision to opt for a progressive financing system. Yet, rather than focusing on the redistributive features of such a scheme, these three members feared that it would offer future governments incentives to move towards a tax-financed system: this conflicted with their emphasis on the need to preserve workers’ sense of self-responsibility and limit state involvement. As we have seen, arp backbencher Stapelkamp similarly criticised the centralised nature of revenue collection, while praising the scheme’s solidaristic features.

When the bill passed parliament, media outlets likewise paid little attention to the scheme’s redistributive consequences, let alone to the fact that the scheme constituted a rather poor deal for middle class wage earners in redistributive terms. They did, by contrast, pay much attention to the benefit improvements that the scheme’s introduction brought about. There was also some discussion about the extent in which the new scheme constituted a compromise between left- and right-wing views on social insurance reform.⁵⁴ The only political actors that did raise objectives to the scheme’s ‘excessive solidarity’ were non-affiliated white-collar associations representing middle and higher paid white-collar wage earners.⁵⁵ As unaffiliated unions, their objections largely fell on deaf ears. They did not have close links to any of the established parties, were excluded from participation in corporatist institutions such as the ser, and the press hardly paid attention to their standpoint.

While the introduction of the General Old Age Act in 1956 was undoubtedly a water shedding event in the history of Dutch welfare state development, its importance does not so much lie in the immediate benefit improvement for old age pensioners. Even though the benefits were certainly higher than those of its predecessor, the old age pension benefit was still insufficient to live on. Consequently, in the following years parliament continued to debate the need for benefit improvements. As the General Old Age Act introduced the principle of wage indexation, meaning that the benefit would automatically increase following general wage adjustments, this debate focused on the need for incremental changes and whether these should be financed by improving the scheme’s progressive nature. This could for instance be done by increasing the level of the contributory wage limit or by abolishing the wage limit altogether. These incremental improvements were a constant feature of the 1960s and 1970s, and were partly financed by gradually increasing the scheme’s progressive features.⁵⁶

Even more important than the immediate benefit improvement that the General Old Age Act brought about, was therefore that its introduction had become possible because the Christian democratic majority in parliament had gradually come to adopt a more solidaristic welfare stance. The gradual transformation of Christian views on democratic welfare made sure that the new state old age pension, as well as other programmes that offered protection against the main labour market risks, became even more generous and solidaristic in later years. This gradual evolution in Christian democratic welfare views would not end in the 1950s. In subsequent years, at least up to the 1970s, the Christian democrats would continue to emphasise the need to act as ‘a shield for the weak’ at the expense of their erstwhile preoccupation with preserving citizens’ sense of personal responsibility and limiting state involvement.

So, for that matter, would the Christian democratic labour union movement. As hinted at earlier, the cnv had always taken a somewhat conservative stance on welfare when compared to the kab. In discussions about old age pension reform in the 1950s, the cnv found it difficult to accept the principle of mandatory occupational pension membership. It no longer had such qualms in later years. When for practical reasons, mandatory occupational pension membership proved difficult to achieve and did not increase beyond 70 percent of wage earners, the cnv proposed a generous earnings-related supplement on top of the old age pension scheme in September 1969. The fact that this supplement would be financed through a pay-as-you-go system, would be centrally collected, and would seriously challenge the existence of occupational pensions, is testament to the extent in which the cnv had changed its views on welfare since the immediate post-war period.

In line with Christian democratic views, the cnv did stick to the principle that this supplement would be financed by worker contributions. As a result, its proposal received serious consideration in parliament, which in turn prompted the employer federations to make a counterproposal. They offered to increase the level of the existing pension to that of the minimum wage, to increase its progressive financing nature, and to renew efforts to make mandatory occupational pension membership possible.⁵⁷ When the unions accepted this counteroffer and the ser produced a unanimous recommendation in favour of such a reform, parliament was quick to adopt it. Following the 1969 pension agreement, the old age pension increased to nearly 80 percent of the average industrial wage for a married couple.⁵⁸ In addition, over 90 percent of all wage earners would eventually benefit from supplementary occupational benefit entitlement.

For a variety of reasons, the Dutch welfare state has long received a tremendous amount of scholarly attention. Over the years, many scholars have pointed to its peculiar developmental trajectory to emphasise the deficiencies of existing perspectives on welfare state development. Furthermore, various studies have sought to explain why the Netherlands managed to create a system of welfare provision that was not only very generous, but also extraordinarily equitable and solidaristic. This article attempted to offer an explanation by focusing on the role of the leading political actors in the Netherlands in this period, namely the Christian democrats, and their relationship with their Christian democratic labour union allies.

The main purpose of this article was to explain why the Dutch Christian democrats came to adopt such a solidaristic welfare stance during the formative post-war period of welfare state expansion. Rather than attributing this stance to electoral or strategic considerations, it focused on the formative role of the Christian democratic labour union movement in persuading these parties to gradually adopt a more solidaristic position towards welfare. By doing so, the article showed that the three main Christian democratic parties in the Netherlands were by no means strongly predisposed to reject solidaristic welfare reform in favour of welfare solutions that benefited middle class groups. Nor did they seek to preserve existing levels of stratification, as much of the existing literature on welfare state development assumes.

Given that much of the existing scholarship argues that material considerations are of overriding importance in shaping party views on welfare, it is noteworthy how little consideration the three parties seem to have given to the redistributive consequences of solidaristic welfare reform. None of them expressed much concern for the fact that in redistributive terms the 1956 General Old Age Act constituted a rather poor deal for middle class voters. To some extent, this relative lack of concern can undoubtedly be attributed to the lack of visibility of solidaristic welfare reform and the party’s sheltered electoral position. At the same time, this lack of concern also simply reflected the fact that the policy positions of Christian democratic parties were to a much lesser extent shaped by economic cleavages and class considerations than those of their competitors on both the left and right.

The findings presented in this article impact our understanding of the broader dynamics of welfare development as well. For one thing, it highlights the need to correct the commonly heard interpretation that successful solidaristic welfare reform necessarily rests on policy-makers’ ability to construct mutually advantageous coalitions between ‘workers’ and the ‘middle classes’. Evidently, solidaristic reform can also come about at the expense of the middle class, in spite of its supposedly privileged political position. In addition, we may need to revise the view that the presence of religious cleavages undermines the ‘power resources’ of progressive forces⁵⁹, since at least in circumstances where Christian democratic parties dominated parliament, the opposite is more likely to have been the case. Finally, the findings suggest that the labour-capital cleavage may have been much less important to the dynamics of welfare reform than much of the existing literature has suggested, at least in Christian democratic ruled societies.