The Politics of Pensions: A Comparative Analysis of Britain, Canada, and the United States, 1880-1940By offering a comparative, institutional analysis of how state-supported pensions for the elderly developed in Britain, Canada, and the United States, Ann Shola Orloff makes a profound contribution to understanding the growth of modern social welfare policies. It is not enough, Orloff demonstrates, to simply examine socioeconomic factors in the growth of the welfare state. She argues that welfare policies are shaped as well by the political institutions and processes that are the legacy of state formation and expansion in given nations. Orloff explains why, when, and how poor relief was replaced by modern social insurance legislation and pensions for the elderly in the first three decades of the twentieth century. She analyzes the long-term social and political transformations that laid the basis for modern social politics: the spread of waged work, the development of New Liberal ideologies, and the expansion and transformation of state administrative capacities. Combining original historical research with the analysis of secondary sources, Orloff's work is an excellent example of the use of comparative and historical methods to answer questions about macropolitical transformation, such as the origin of the welfare state. The Politics of Pensions outlines an original, interdisciplinary approach that will appeal to a wide variety of readers: political sociologists interested in the state, social workers and specialists in old age policy, and comparative researchers of all disciplines engaged in research on the welfare state. |
Contents
The Problem of Old Age and Modern Social Provision | 3 |
Explaining the Emergence of Modern Social Provision | 41 |
THE MAKING OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION | 93 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
administration aged poor American analysts argued benefits Britain British Bryden bureaucratic Canada Canadian capacities capitalist chap Charities and Correction Chilvers Coton civil service reform Civil War pensions Commission on Old Conference of Charities contributory democratic dependent economic elderly electoral elites emerged enacted Esping-Andersen factors federal forces Gratton groups History households ideology important indoor relief industrial initiatives institutions labor liberal Massachusetts middle-class modern social provision nineteenth century noncontributory old age assistance old age insurance old age pensions organizations outdoor relief party patronage paupers pension legislation pension system percent policy developments policy legacy politicians poor law poor relief popular poverty problems Progressive Era proportion public social provision Quadagno Roosevelt Skocpol social insurance social policy social reform Social Security Act social spending social welfare society Theda Skocpol three countries tion Toronto U.S. Social Security unemployment United University Press W. L. Mackenzie King workers workhouse working-class York