Comment by CalRobert
8 hours ago
I moved to the Netherlands a couple years ago and it seems pretty nice, curious what evidence there is trust has dropped.
The government’s appalling failure wrt housing seems like a pretty valid reason for young people to distrust institutions tbh.
It has fallen due to many reasons, some of which are related to migration, many others with no or only tangential relations to it. You already mentioned the 'housing crisis' which is partly related to migration - where asylum seekers with residence permits ('statushouders' [1] in Dutch) get preferential treatment and now stand for 8% of the total, 20% of the housing for 'first time renters' and 78% of the 'first time renters with children' [2]. This is only part of the problem though and not the largest one, that being the fact that there are simply too few housing units (apartments, houses, etc.) available. This in turn is partly due to the fact that it is hard to get permission to build something due to the heavy regulatory burdens and especially the rules around nitrogen emissions ('stikstofregels' [3], nitrogen oxide emissions by diesel engines used in construction put strict limits on what can be built when and where).
Then there are problems like the childcare benefits scandal ('toeslagenaffaire') - again partly related to migration by way of Bulgarian migrant fraud [4] - where the tax department made erroneous claims about benefit fraud without every really acknowledging they were wrong. I have some experience with the Dutch tax authorities making clear mistakes without accepting responsibility, instead they come up with mysterious restitutions which somehow exactly match the erroneously claimed taxes due.
The restrictive and SARS2 unpleasantness hit trust in public institutions hard which caused the universities of Rotterdam and Leiden to publish a report calling the Netherlands a new low-trust society ('de laag-vertrouwensamenleving', [6]). This trend has not reversed, especially among those with 'higher educational levels' [7] who used to have a higher trust in governmental institutions but now slid down to resemble the trust levels seen among those with 'lower educational levels' - this could simply be related to the fact that the left-wing parties favoured by those with 'higher education' did not participate in the government at that time.
I grew up in the Netherlands and lived there until about 25 years ago. I have seen this slide in trust with my own eyes, from the country where I could open the front door by pulling the string which dangled through the letter slot when I cycled home from school at 6 years old to the Fort-Knox-with-cameras now required, from the police officer on his bike greeting the people on his beat to "romeo's" (undercover arrest teams) being accused of inciting riots [8], from nearly the entire village coming out to welcome Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas who brings presents to children at the 5th of December) to those events being cancelled due to the fear of violence and protests, etcetera.
[1] https://www.volkshuisvestingnederland.nl/onderwerpen/huren-e...
[2] https://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/meer-sociale-huurwoning...
[3] https://iplo.nl/regelgeving/regels-voor-activiteiten/technis...
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand...
[6] https://www.impactcorona.nl/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Def_-...
[7] https://www.scp.nl/actueel/nieuws/2025/03/04/onder-nederland...
[8] https://reportersonline.nl/politiegeweld-romeos/