This chapter examines the relationship between disability insurance (DI) and retirement in the Netherlands. Two questions are addressed, the first of which is whether health and mortality trends played a role in the increasing numbers of DI recipients until the early 1990s and their decrease since then. The second question concerns the effect of DI reforms and other income maintenance and early retirement programs on the number of older workers exiting the labor market, and on the pathways chosen to exit and effectively retire. The results show that the relatively generous and easily accessible DI benefit contributes to the large numbers of workers retiring from the labor market at relatively early ages in the Netherlands. There are no indications that the high numbers of DI are related to high mortality rates or high percentages of persons living in bad health.