History of the Welfare States

Although the welfare state is different by country and even by state in some cases it has the same overall goal everywhere: to help those in need. Depending on where you come from the history of the welfare state is going to be different. There is not just one history for all of the global welfare state. The rules in which the welfare state goes by depends on each individual countries own values and they decide who is able to receive welfare from the government. It also seems that 3rd world countries don’t have a welfare system at all. That has to do with the fact that they are poor and cannot afford to have such a system. The welfare system is mainly used by more developed countries that can afford to use their money to help support their countries people.
Depending on how far back in history you want to go there is reason to believe that back in medieval times there was also some forms of welfare. This types of “welfare” was run by the church, the church would collect money to give to the less fortunate and also to hospitals where there were people in need. That is the real basic form of a welfare state. Since then the welfare state has gotten a bit more complicated.
In Brittan the New Poor act of 1837 enforced the principle of less eligibility for different people. This is the start of people having to prove that they need the money to survive. There were also many acts in the early 1900’s that gave people benefits for their age and health insurance. In 1941 there was a tax reform of the British Welfare System done by Beveridge to tidy up the system. (Beveridge is known to be the founder of the welfare state). Around in the WWII era there were also many new acts that were made to go along with the new welfare system. In the 1980’s the welfare bills started to go up again which has led Brittan to think about new ways of doing things again. More specific information on Brittan can be found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/field_01.shtml
In the early 1990’s America’s welfare system reduced the number of people that could receive certain types of welfare. There is still an ongoing debate to this day about who should and should not get welfare from the states. (I’m not going to go into the American welfare system in detail since the people in this class live in America) http://social.jrank.org/pages/687/Welfare-Programs.html
In Australia the Welfare states had their emergence generally in times of war (1939-1945). Which makes sense since that is the time when people usually go through economical struggles. I noticed this not only with Australia, but also with other countries as well. There seems to be a pattern that when a war breaks out new welfare system changes come along with it. For example New Zealand’s welfare system was also founded during a war time in 1935-1949.
In any case all of the welfare states throughout the world have been expanding a lot since their founding. There is still a lot of debate going on about what does and does not work for the welfare system, so it is constantly changing. It is hard to pinpoint one history for all of the global welfare state. Every place establishes their own systems and their own ways of dealing with their country’s people through their system. There is a lot of different information out there to look at I particularly like this website though, it has some interesting information on it. http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy/introduction/wstate.htm