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Who were the unemployed? Conventions, classifications and social security law in Britain (1911-1934)
Wer waren die Arbeitslosen? Konventionen, Klassifikationen und Sozialversicherungsrecht in Britannien (1911-1934)
[journal article]
Abstract "The British government introduced the first mandatory national scheme of unemployment insurance in 1911. This required uniform legal definitions to be introduced to govern rights to state benefits. In an unstructured labour market, this process was never straightforward. In analysing how categories... view more
"The British government introduced the first mandatory national scheme of unemployment insurance in 1911. This required uniform legal definitions to be introduced to govern rights to state benefits. In an unstructured labour market, this process was never straightforward. In analysing how categories were established and specific rights endowed under constantly changing unemployment insurance law, the article witnesses the re-emergence of conventional judgments reflecting earlier distinctions between “deserving” and “undeserving” claimants. Using convention theory, this article thus explores constructions of legitimacy that underpinned claimant categorization, but also the constraints imposed in a liberal political economy on state-sponsored labour market interventions that blocked official influence on the distribution of work. In this respect, British governing conventions have proved long lasting and are reflected in very similar systems of categorization derived from the same type of market judgment that characterizes recent policies governing support for the unemployed." (author's abstract)... view less
Keywords
unemployment insurance; social rights; social insurance; historical development; Great Britain; convention; unemployment
Classification
Social History, Historical Social Research
Social Security
Document language
English
Publication Year
2015
Page/Pages
p. 150-169
Journal
Historical Social Research, 40 (2015) 1
Issue topic
Law and conventions from a historical perspective
DOI
https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.40.2015.1.150-169
ISSN
0172-6404
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed