Source: Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies, Shifting Responsibilities, Conference Report, Amsterdam 2006, pp. 63-66 How to cover the time risk? Response to Prof. dr. Lieve de Lathouwer Kees Goudswaard, Leiden University Just five years ago, many countries were interested in how the welfare state was organized in the Netherlands. The ‘Dutch miracle’ was widely debated. However, I’m afraid that the Dutch miracle is dead and buried - if it ever existed, that is. The question now is can we learn from welfare state policies in other countries, for example in Belgium? Professor De Lathouwers’s paper is very interesting and informative in this respect. It presents both a theoretical analysis of the so-called new social risks, and discusses the Belgian experiences with leave schemes. I agree with the basic idea of the paper that time, or more specifically an appropriate balance between work and private life, can be considered as a new social risk that requires new institutional answers. For many people, the spread of work and other activities over the life course is far from optimal. At the same time, life course and work patterns are changing rapidly. I also agree that a life-course scheme that improves the balance between work and other activities - such as learning or caring for children or other relatives - may have benefits at several levels: the individual level, the level of the firm and the public level. Society obviously has an interest in time spent on good care for children and on life-long learning. It has often been stressed that modern welfare states should put more emphasis on such investments in human capital. Because of the benefits at several levels, shared responsibility for time arrangements seems to be the logical answer. I have three comments on the paper. A central question is: what is the optimal time arrangement and what is the optimal collectivity to organize such an arrangement? The paper presents several arguments in favour of a basic public time insurance in the first pillar. The problem, however, is that new social risks are mainly manufactured or endogenous risks, which are difficult to insure. There is an obvious danger of moral