The Evolution of National Insurance

This is the standard guide to this key area of public policy. It provides an analytical account of the legislative experiments by which British governments sought to provide citizens with the physical, educational and welfare institutions that became the basis of modern British systems.

The important social innovation was social insurance, which became the basic mechanism for the British welfare state and the social security framework of the United States.

Professor Gilbert’s extensive researches provided much new material, for the history of how the British government created the physical, educational and welfare institutions in response to the problems of poverty and access to essential services.

It remains the key commentary on the history of British social legislation down to the outbreak of the Great War, and for its subsequent implications.

Contents.

New introduction by Pat Thane

Foreword

Preface

Author’s original Introduction

The Eighties and the Nineties: The Two Nations

The Condition of the People

The Children of the Nation 

Old Age Pensions

The Untrodden Field – Unemployment

National Health Insurance

The Establishment of National Health Insurance

Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.