In the Netherlands, with its remarkably high disability rates, a new phenomenon seems to be emerging. Growing disability rates in the past few years have been exclusively caused by the growing inflow of women into the disability schemes.Comparing the Dutch situation internationally shows that roughly the same problem seems to exist in those countries in which there is a more general problem of large inflow into disability. Women are overrepresented in these arrangements. The Dutch literature shows that there are many factors (both work-and non-work-related) that contribute to a larger push of women towards disability. We conclude that the benefit system can be seen as a sort of "filter". If the filter is weak, many persons will enter disability. If the pressure on women to enter is larger (or the forces to stop women from entering disability smaller), then inflow risks for women will be higher.D is abil ity has been an is sue of grow ing con cern for policymakers in many coun tries. High dis abil ity rates do not just cause a fi nan cial bur den. They also pose a so cial and la bour mar ket prob lem. In the com ing de cades the age ing of the pop u la tion will make this prob lem even more prom i nent. Not only is the num ber of per sons over pen sion able age in creas ing rap idly. The la bour force it self is be com ing older. As the risk of be com ing dis abled in creases with age, the dis abil ity prob lem will un doubt edly gain in importance. Many in di vid ual coun tries as well as the Eu ro pean Un ion have © In ter na tional So cial Se cu rity As so ci a tion, 2005In ter na tional So cial Se cu rity Re view, Vol. 58, 1/2005 Pub lished by Blackwell Pub lish ing 65The au thors work at the Min is try of So cial Af fairs and Em ploy ment in the Neth er lands. The con tent is ex clu sively the re spon si bil ity of the au thors and does not nec es sar ily re flect the views of the Min is try. Only lit er a ture which is spe cif i cally dis cussed in this ar ti cle is listed in the bib li og ra phy. A full list of ref er ences is avail able from the au thors.