ABSTRACT

After the Second World War, European states and the United States consolidated and expanded their systems of public protection. Those systems based upon the principle of universalism aimed to provide security without stigma. The politics of post-war equality were more in line with what the British sociologist T.H. Marshall had described in 1949 as a new type of ‘social citizenship’ in which equal social status was accorded to all through the establishment of social rights. In Sweden and France, benefit was distributed from central funds according to citizenship status rather than based on participation in the labour market. In the period of welfare expansion, expenditure on the public sector of the economy and social security provision was perceived as a stimulant rather than a drain on economic growth. A serious shortage of medical personnel after the introduction of compulsory health insurance was rectified by the government breaking professional control over training and recruitment.