ABSTRACT
The progressive advance of the machine age has drawn more and more people away from agriculture, with its direct resources of food and shelter, its relative stability and the mutual supports of rural community life, and has made them dependent on industry, which provides them with higher standards of living and the amenities of urban life but also increasingly confronts them with the insecurities of specialisation, changing fashions, competition and the great swings from boom to depression. Social security is much more than a charitable and humanitarian device. Social security was applied piecemeal, and there were many gaps, some overlaps and many anomalies and administrative complexities. In Britain the social insurance system is based mainly on flat rate contributions and benefits. The working of social security systems has revealed various gaps, and a general trend has been to include groups of people and risks not previously covered.
