In fact, Germany was the pioneer in this area. It was the first to introduce industrial accident insurance (1871), health insurance (1883) and state pensions (1889), although France was the first country to introduce unemployment insurance (1905) .124 Germany’s early welfare institutions were already very ‘modern’ in character (having, for example, universal coverage), and they apparently attracted great admiration from the French Left at the time. It is important to note that under the leadership of Gustav Schmoller, the scholars belonging to the German Historical School (see Chapter 1) formed the influential Verein fur Sozialpolitik (Union for Social Policy) and pushed strongly for the introduction of social welfare legislation in Germany.[125]
Social welfare institutions made impressive progress in the NDCs during the fifty-year period between the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century. In 1875, none of the 19 countries listed in table 3.4 had any of the four welfare institutions covered in the table, with the exception of Germany, which had introduced industrial accident insurance in 1871. However, by 1925, 16 countries had industrial accident insurance, 13 had health insurance, 12 had a pension system and 12 had unemployment insurance.
| Table 3.4 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction of social welfare institutions in the NDCs | ||||
| Industrial Accident | Health | Pension | Unemployment | |
| Germany | 1871 | 1883 | 1889 | 1927 |
| Switzerland | 1881 | 1911 | 1946 | 1924 |
| Austria | 1887 | 1888 | 1927 | 1920 |
| Norway | 1894 | 1909 | 1936 | 1906 |
| Finland | 1895 | 1963 | 1937 | 1917 |
| UK | 1897 | 1911 | 1908 | 1911 |
| Ireland* | 1897 | 1911 | 1908 | 1911 |
| Italy | 1898 | 1886 | 1898 | 1919 |
| Denmark | 1898 | 1892 | 1891 | 1907 |
| France | 1898 | 1898 | 1895 | 1905 |
| New Zealand | 1900 | 1938 | 1898 | 1938 |
| Spain | 1900 | 1942 | 1919 | n.a. |
| Sweden | 1901 | 1891 | 1913 | 1934 |
| Netherlands | 1901 | 1929 | 1913 | 1916 |
| Australia | 1902 | 1945 | 1909 | 1945 |
| Belgium | 1903 | 1894 | 1900 | 1920 |
| Canada | 1930 | 1971 | 1927 | 1940 |
| USA | 1930 | No | 1935 | 1935 |
| Portugal | 1962 | 1984[+] | 1984[+] | 1984[+] |
Sources: Pierson 1998, p. 104, table 4.1. The information on Spain is from Voltes 1979, Maza 1987 and Soto 1989. The information .on Portugal is from Wiener 1977 and Magone 1997.
1. The countries are arranged in the order in which they introduced industrial accident insurance (starting with Germany in 1871). If it was introduced in the same year in more than one country, we list the country that introduced health insurance earlier first.
2. The figures include schemes which were initially voluntary but state-aided, as well as those that were compulsory.
* Ireland was a UK colony during the years mentioned.
+ Although some social welfare institutions were introduced in Portugal from the 1960s, they remained very fragmented systems, consisting of partial regimes regulating the social insurance of certain social groups until 1984.
Child labour has generated particularly heated debate since the early days of industrialization, as we shall soon see. More recently, however, the debate has taken on a new international dimension. There is now a demand that developed countries should put pressure on developing countries to eliminate child labour. Particularly controversial is the proposal to reduce child labour by imposing trade sanctions through the WTO on countries that violate ‘international labour standards’, including in particular those standards on child labour.[126]
There is widespread concern that such sanctions will impose institutional standards on developing countries that cannot afford them, although exactly what is ‘affordable’ is difficult to establish. Some are worried that such measures may be abused in the interests of ‘unfair’, covert protectionism; others argue that, whether or not they are economically viable, issues like child labour regulation should never be internationally sanctioned. Some commentators point out that it is unreasonable to expect a swift eradication of child labour in today’s developing countries, when the NDCs took centuries to achieve it.
Child labour was widespread in the NDCs during the earlier days of their industrialization. In the 1820s, it was reported that British children were working between 12.5 and 16 hours per day. Between 1840 and 1846, children under 14 accounted for up to 20 per cent of the factory workforce in Germany. In Sweden, children as young as five or six years old could still be employed as late as 1837.[127]
In the USA, child labour was widespread in the early nineteenth century: in the 1820s, about half of cotton textile workers were under 16. At the time, it was very common for families to be hired as a complete unit. For example, in 1813 a cotton manufacturer advertised in a New York state provincial paper, the Utica Patriot, that ‘[a] few sober and industrious families of at least five children, each over the age of eight years are wanted at the Cotton Factory’.[128] As late as 1900, the number of children under 16 in the USA working full time (1.7 million) exceeded the whole membership of the American Federation of Labour (AFL), then the country’s main trade union.[129]
In Britain, the first attempts to introduce institutions to regulate child labour met with stiff resistance. In the debate surrounding the 1819 Cotton Factories Regulation Act, which banned the employment of children under the age of nine and restricted children’s working hours, some members of the House of Lords argued that ‘labour ought to be free’ while others argued that children are not ‘free agents’. The earlier laws (1802, 1819, 1825 and 1831) remained largely ineffective, partly because Parliament would not vote to commit the money needed for its implementation. For example, the 1819 Act had secured only two convictions by 1825.[130]
The first serious attempt to regulate child labour in Britain was the 1833 Factory Act, but this only covered the cotton, wool, flax and silk industries.[131] This act banned the employment of children under nine; it also limited the working day of children between nine and 13 to eight hours and that for ‘young persons’ (those between 13 and 18) to 12 hours. Children were not allowed to work during the night (between 8.30 pm and 5.30 am). In 1844, another Factory Act reduced the working hours of children under 13 to six and a half (or seven under special circumstances), and made provisions for compulsory mealtimes. However, this was partly countered by a lowering of the minimum working age from nine to eight. The 1847 Factory Act (the ‘Ten Hours Act’) reduced the working day of children aged between 13 and 18 to 10 hours.
125
Blackbourn 1997, pp. 346-7; see Balabkins 1988 for details on the German Historical School.
126
Basu 1999a is a comprehensive and sophisticated review of the debate. Basu 1999b is a more user-friendly version. Engerman 2001 provides a comprehensive review of the history of this issue.
127
Hammond and Hammond 1995, p. 169 (Britain); Lee 1978, p. 466 (Germany); Montgomery 1939, pp. 219-22 (Sweden).
131
The following details are from Marx 1976, pp. 390-5 unless otherwise specified; see also Mathias 1969, pp. 203-4, for further details.