This issue of Focaal is the result of a PhD research seminar on Social security, law and socioeconomic change which was held in Wageningen and Rotterdam in the autumn of 1992. It was jointly organized by Franz von Benda-Beckmann, of the Department of Agrarian Law, Agricultural University Wageningen (AUW), and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann of the Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Law, Erasmu…