The rich, white Dutch live the most segregated lives: CBS

People of Dutch origin with high salaries are least likely to have people with foreign roots in their networks of friends, colleagues and neighbours, national statistics agency CBS said on Friday. 

And the higher the income, the more likely they are to live in a segregated bubble, the CBS said in a new report.

The report looked at segregation among the ethnic Dutch and the 10 biggest foreign communities in the Netherlands between 2009 and 2020. 

It found alongside the Dutch, that Turkish, Moroccan and Polish communities – people who were born abroad or who have at least one parent who was – also tend to be fairly segregated. The least segregated communities, however, had German, British and Indonesian roots. 

But while the ethnic Dutch are more likely to live in relative isolation the higher their income, the reverse is true for people with Turkish, Moroccan and Caribbean roots, the CBS found. In these communities high earners are more likely to have a less segregated network than their peers on lower incomes.

One possible explanation is fewer people with different roots live in richer neighbourhoods and work in highly paid jobs, the CBS said.

The research also shows that the native Dutch have become more segregated since 2009, even though the population has become more diverse. “This can be explained by the fact that schools have become increasingly segregated, and that influences your networks,” Radboud University lecturer Jochem Tolsma told the Volkskrant.  

The biggest danger presented by such segregation is increasing polarisation, Tolsma said. “You can’t force people to be friends but you can manage points of contact”, such as by developing mixed ability schools and mixed housing.

“The native Dutch often say that the others don’t integrate,” Tolsma told the paper. “But this research reinforces the point that integration takes two groups.” 

At the end of last year Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema caused a furore in the international community by telling “expats” to get out of their bubble.