Introduction

Government-sponsored social protection (or social insurance) is generally considered a European “invention.” Its origin has at times been traced to the Workmen Compensation for Norwegian Miners, enacted as far back as 1842, to the Venetian Fund for invalid sailors of 1786, or, more often, to the legislation introduced by Bismarck in Germany in the 1880s. The Social Security Act, introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt in the United States in the middle of the Great Depression, represented a considerable extension and aimed to cover all American workers (but not all citizens) who met some requirements, such as age and years of contribution.

In France, the birth of “securité sociale” is attributed to an “ordinance” (a regulation) issued on 4 October 1945, at about the same time when the Beveridge proposals were being considered in Britain. The French public system had been preceded by several private programs of family welfare and social insurance that had been introduced in France after 1914. These had started, generally, with initiatives by employers and by private mutual aid societies. They were later taken over by the government and incorporated in government programs (Dutton, 2002).

In Britain, the introduction of government social protection programs came after World War II, with legislation introduced by the newly elected Labor Party, which implemented the 1942 Beveridge Report proposals. However, the road to social reform had started in a limited scale and coverage much earlier, in the period between 1906 and 1914.