Preliminary Programme

Wed 4 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 5 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30
    19.00 - 20.15
    20.30 - 22.00

Fri 6 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 7 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.00 - 17.00

All days
Go back

Wednesday 4 April 2018 16.30 - 18.30
Z-4 SOC06 Mutual aid and State Provision: Mutual Insurance, Social Policy and Individual Welfare in Europe in the 19th and 20th Century
Music Lecture Theatre School of Music
Network: Social Inequality Chair: Marco H.D. van Leeuwen
Organizer: Jonathan Fink-Jensen Discussant: Marco H.D. van Leeuwen
Lars Fredrik Andersson, Liselotte Eriksson : Adverse/Propitious Selection in Swedish Mutual Health Insurance Societies, 1905-1930
Liselotte Eriksson and Lars Fredrik Andersson will present a paper on the relation between occupation and morbidity among men and women in Sweden during the period 1905 to 1930. Using unique data on individual members of one of the largest, national mutual health insurance societies in Sweden, (without actuarial techniques ... (Show more)
Liselotte Eriksson and Lars Fredrik Andersson will present a paper on the relation between occupation and morbidity among men and women in Sweden during the period 1905 to 1930. Using unique data on individual members of one of the largest, national mutual health insurance societies in Sweden, (without actuarial techniques of premium setting by age/risk class) the paper seeks to establish how occupation impacted on the selection of premium levels and morbidity frequency/duration. By estimating the selection/outcome relation, this paper seeks to identify whether adverse or propitious selection of members were at hand.

(Show less)

Jonathan Fink-Jensen : Mutual Sickness Insurance Traditions and Social Policy in England and the Netherlands, 1870-1950
In this paper I seek to show how predominant forms of mutual sickness insurance in England and the Netherlands have evolved between 1870 and 1950. Although a comparative approach between national developments in this field is not new, I argue that the execution of this comparison can be enhanced by ... (Show more)
In this paper I seek to show how predominant forms of mutual sickness insurance in England and the Netherlands have evolved between 1870 and 1950. Although a comparative approach between national developments in this field is not new, I argue that the execution of this comparison can be enhanced by using insights from the research on commons. More specifically, I explore how a focus on institutional designs and rule configurations is helpful in comparing developments both within and between national trends.

Current categorisations of mutualist insurance traditions are often either too broad (e.g. ‘the’ mutual is opposed to other forms of insurance) or too specific (distinction is made between nationally or regionally relevant categories that have no equivalent elsewhere) to conduct a comparative research between countries. In this paper I will first identify the most important mutualist sickness insurance traditions in England and the Netherlands as described by historians and contemporaries. Then, I will propose a new categorisation based on the institutional design of the associations. Apart from a concern with the financial viability of the associations, the evaluation of the mutuals’ capabilities to execute sickness insurance has often been balanced between a praise of their democratic principles and a criticism of their exclusive nature. Therefore, I argue that categorisations should be based on the specific form of democratic governance combined with the entry rules as defined by the mutual.

Subsequently, I will trace the evolution of the mutualist traditions by analysing rule configurations of a selected group of associations in both countries. In England, governmental incentives for professionalization and growth of the membership were intensified after the enactment of the National Insurance Act in 1911, which in combination with the increased competition of industrial insurance companies and centralised (i.e. less democratic) friendly societies resulted in a convergence of entry and information rules. In the Netherlands national legislation was only effectively introduced in 1929 (Ziektewet - Sickness Act) and 1941 (Ziekenfondsenbesluit – Health Insurance Act), but competition was fierce and compelled the mutuals to also grow in size and professionalise. These trends show that although certain features of mutualism were evaluated positively by national governments and the general public (e.g. democratic governance), legislative frameworks could unintentionally lead to the demise of exactly these features. The integration of friendly societies into the British national social insurance scheme in 1911 serves as a good case in point. Although the reciprocal and democratic principles that underlay their operation were praised by public administrators, the design of the new scheme undermined these two elements that helped the friendly societies to get included in the scheme in the first place. The introduction of new members and the tighter governmental control that followed the enactment helped to further decrease the importance of fraternal and sociable traditions within the friendly society movement, thereby impeding the realisation and operation of reciprocal and democratic principles in practice. (Show less)

Fernando Largo Jiménez : “Cooperate or Perish“. The Public Social Insurances in Spain and the Strategies of the Federation of Friendly Societies of Catalonia
Friendly Societies were the main actors in the provision of social welfare in Europe between the first third of the 19th and the rise of welfare states. These societies were based on mutual aid and governed by rules which were largely inspired by the relief-focused brotherhoods of the Ancien Régime, ... (Show more)
Friendly Societies were the main actors in the provision of social welfare in Europe between the first third of the 19th and the rise of welfare states. These societies were based on mutual aid and governed by rules which were largely inspired by the relief-focused brotherhoods of the Ancien Régime, adapted to the needs of the new industrial society. In Spain, traditional friendly societies reached their peak during the 1920s and 1930s, after which they began to decline. Previous works chiefly attribute this decline to factors such as the small size of many of these mutual-help networks; their ignorance of actuarial techniques; the inflation in medical costs; the membership aging; the competition of sick insurance companies and other forms of sociability; and the growing role of the State in social welfare (Pons & Vilar 2011).

The proposed paper analyses the relations of conflict and cooperation between workers’ mutualism, represented by the Federation of Friendly Societies of Catalonia, and the different administrations (provincial, regional and State) during the long period of implementation of public social insurances in Spain (mainly accidents, old age, maternity and sickness). This began in 1900 with the Work Accidents Law and ends in the 1940s with the establishment of Compulsory Sickness Insurance. The Federation was not against compulsory public insurances, but it wanted the participation of traditional friendly societies in the welfare system, as in Great Britain and France. After the Civil War (1936-1939), the Francoist regime imposed a statist model of sickness insurance, but given the economic precariousness, was forced to the collaboration with larger mutual societies and entities such as the Federation itself. Collaboration with the State became a determinant for the survival of a mutualism which, after a process of professionalization and concentration, continued to be important in Catalonia.

Cited references:
Pons, J. & M. Vilar. 2011. “Friendly Societies, Commercial Insurance, and the State in Sickness Risk Coverage: The Case of Spain (1880-1944).” International Review of Social History 56: 71–101. (Show less)



Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer