The birth of social insurance

A great contribution to the development of the social insurance system in the world was made by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who in the 1880s introduced a social protection program in the country. Within a few years, the country adopted a law on sickness insurance, a law on industrial accident insurance, and a law on old age and disability insurance. Insurance premiums were established by law and paid by both employers and employees themselves. This decision was the first legislative act in history to regulate social security.

Subsequently, such social security programs spread rapidly around the world. In the 1910s, laws on compulsory state social insurance were adopted in England, France and Sweden. It was these three states that, because of the peculiarities embedded in the foundations of state insurance social legislation, eventually became the main centers of further formation and development of the three major models of social policy - liberal (England), conservative or corporatist (France), and social democratic (Sweden).