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Self-reliance in Everyday Life 2.1 The Daily Challenge of Self-reliance Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, managing personal finances, finding and holding down a job-these are challenges that everyone faces. This chapter focuses on the following question: what mental capacities must an individual have to be able to meet these challenges? Health, personal finance and the job market are not the subject of this book, but they do illustrate the importance of having the right mental capacities to be selfreliant in our society. In this chapter we describe situations that apply to a relatively large number of people. While the chapter reports on research conducted in the Netherlands, the situations that it describes also occur in similar forms in other Western countries. We make an analytical distinction between the capacities needed to avoid problems (prevention) and the capacities needed to cope with problems (control). In real life, we see that some of these capacities are important in both situations, and that problems do not always have a clear starting point. This chapter is based on various sources. In each domain, we conducted a number of interviews with professionals and other stakeholders (more than 60 interviews in total, see Appendix I). We asked our interviewees what people must be able to do to be self-reliant and what typifies those who are good or bad at it. To provide solid underpinnings for the information obtained in our interviews, we draw on research conducted within the various domains. Because we aim to reflect on everyday experience in this chapter, we sometimes use the language of daily life. In addition to capacities, then, we also refer to health literacy, financial literacy, and job market skills. In the following sections, we review what is required of people in each domain and then discuss the role mental capacities play in each context.
For many people, it's an annual ritual. They receive their pension fund's end-of-year statement, they open it, it lies on their desk or table for a while, and then it disappears unread into their 'pension' folder. The changing labour market means that there are growing risks associated with this behaviour. A job for life is increasingly being superseded by flexible contracts and self-employment. People need to take action and make choices long before they start approaching retirement age. Filing away information unread can lead to major financial difficulties in the long term. In the Netherlands, it is compulsory for employees to participate in a pension scheme. Even so, the Netherlands' financial supervisory authority has concluded that at their current rate of pension accrual, a third of the public will be unable to meet their projected spending requirements. It is often thought that these are problems that only people with low incomes face. That is not the case. "Awareness is particularly weak among high-income individuals. Almost 70% do not anticipate their pension shortfall". 1 People must also be on constant high alert in other crucial areas of their lives. Fewer and fewer remain with one employer for years on end. Permanent contracts are giving way to flexible work. Employees and self-employed persons are expected to keep their own employability up to standard and to identify new opportunities and threats themselves. Health care policy has also made freedom of choice and taking responsibility for oneself a priority. People are increasingly expected to take charge of their own care. 2 Self-reliant patients are well informed, choose their own care providers, and actively take decisions about their own treatment in consultation with medical professionals.
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