The basic structure of French society remained relatively stable in the decades between the consolidation of the Third Republic and the outbreak of the First World War. France remained a fundamentally bourgeois society, in contrast to its European neighbors, such as Britain and Germany, where titled aristocrats continued to enjoy important privileges. The consolidation of the Republic, a regime based on secular values, provided opportunity for new cultural developments. Traditionally, France was considered to have lagged behind the other major European countries in enacting welfare legislation, particularly because it was so slow in providing unemployment insurance. Recent research has changed this picture considerably and shown that the Third Republic was a pioneer in many areas of welfare policy, especially with regard to protection of women and children. The fact that France was often in the lead in its concern for the welfare of women and children was due less to women's groups than to the efforts of middle-class male reformers.