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The differences between healthy persons and chronically ill patients (chronic non-specific lung disease, reumatic disease, diabetes mellitus), with respect to situation of life and social support were studied in a cross-sectional study. By secondary analysis of the Life- situation Survey 1986, Cultural Changes in the Netherlands 1988 and 1989 (total: 8081 respondents) the subjects were studied. Seven groups of indicators of life situation and social support were selected. Two samples - one consisting of people with only one of the above mentioned chronic diseases and one consisting of people without health complaints - were individually matched. The relevant characteristics in the matching procedure were: gender, age, socio-economic status (education), whether or not living alone, the relations inside the household and the degree of urbanization. Chronically ill patients contrast in a negative sense with healthy persons on some aspects of their situation of life: the perception of the health-status, (dis)satisfaction, negative life events, material resources (car), restrictions in their labour and leisure activities. Not completely clear are the results with regard to social support. The pairs of chronically ill and healthy people do not differ much ; except that ill persons feel socially isolated in the neighbourhood and they are less satisfied with their marriage and family than healthy persons. The reason for these ambiguous results may be the limited operationalisation of the concept of social support in this study.