ABSTRACT
A comprehensive and compulsory Social Security system was one of the innovations brought by the Liberation in Belgium and France in 1944 and 1945. In Belgium, the Decree-Law of 28 December 1944 introduced a Social Security system for salaried workers in the private sector. In France the Ordinance on Social Security, introducing a system covering sickness, child benefits, old age pensions and industrial accidents, was passed on 4 October 1945. In the Netherlands, the Van Rhijn commission, installed by the government in exile in London, had introduced the concept of Social Security and drawn up a detailed plan for a Social Security system, which was to replace the existing social insurance schemes. 1 Changes proved to be less far-reaching at the Liberation, however, than in France and Belgium. In 1947 the pension system was changed and would include more people, which made the pension system a ‘people’s insurance’. In 1949, compulsory unemployment insurance was introduced which replaced the temporary measures taken at the Liberation. In contrast to France and Belgium, the shift from social insurances to Social Security was a more gradual process, which was only completed in the 1950s, leading to a system that included more citizens than only the salaried workers of the private sector as in Belgium and France. 2
