Young Europeans who come to Amsterdam to live and work have trouble fitting in and most leave the city after little more than a year, according to Thursday´s NRC.

This is because ´free movers´ feel excluded from Dutch society, claims Adrian Favell who is a sociology professor at the University of California.
Favell is not talking about discrimination. ´It’s much more subtle than that. Foreigners have difficulty breaking the social codes and can’t find their way through the Dutch bureaucratic maze,´he says.
´One of the people I interviewed pays €2,000 a month rent for his apartment whereas his Dutch neighbour one floor down pays just €250-300. Why? It’s because his neighbour has been a member of a housing cooperation for years and he hasn’t.’
In fact, the Netherlands has one of the smallest percentages of European residents in Europe, he says.

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