The feminisation of a fraternal institution: Swedish sickness funds 1890-1955

"Since the late 19th century, Western countries have implemented a wide range of public insurance programs. In many countries, the evolution of public insurance has been modeled on cooperative, mutual insurance funds. Especially sickness insurance funds have been recognized for their importance, not only as forerunners to public insurance but also for risk sharing, risk transferring and loss mitigation. By reducing risks related to sickness, illness and accident, sickness funds improved social welfare. In a society with a lack of sufficient medical care for the majority and where epidemics flourished due to insanitary living conditions and illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis caused thousands of lives annually, sickness- and burial funds performed an important task. However, a state that could imply great danger and cause both death and misery in mid nineteenth century was pregnancy. The risk to die while giving birth was 30 per cent in 1890 and an infant had a 60 per cent chance to survive its first birthday. To counteract infant mortality, the government introduced a labour protection law in 1900 that prohibited women in the industry to work until four weeks had passed after giving birth; the period was increased to six weeks in 1912. In many families there were many women that were sole providers for the family and in several working class households the wife’s salary was essential to ensure the necessary minimum income. The lack of possibility to work and provide for her family naturally affected unmarried women the most. A discourse, dominating political decisions, where unmarried mothers had no place in the public sphere and the ideology of the male breadwinner model, caused a discrepancy between reality where unmarried mothers counted for a large share and where both unmarried and married women had to work to secure a sufficient income. Although researchers have investigated the evolution of sickness-, accident- and pension insurance few have recognized the importance of the implementation of public maternity allowance. It did e.g. not, in the case of America, see to the needs of women for maternity allowance."