Social Policy - History of Social Policy

History of Social Policy

The earliest example of direct intervention by government in human welfare dates back to Umar ibn al-Khattāb's rule as the second caliph of Islam in the 6th century. He used zakah collections and also other governmental resources to establish pensions, income support, child benefits, various stipends for people of the non-Muslim community.

In the West, proponents of scientific social planning, such as the sociologist Auguste Comte, and social researchers, such as Charles Booth, contributed to the emergence of social policy in the first industrialised countries. Surveys of poverty that exposed the brutal conditions in the urban slum conurbations of Victorian Britain pressured changes reform of the Poor Law and welfare reforms by the British Liberal Party. Other significant examples in the development of social policy are the Bismarckian welfare state in 19th century Germany; social security policies introduced by the New Deal in the United States between 1933 and 1935, and health reforms the Beveridge Report of 1942.

Social policy in the 21st century is complex and in each state it is subject to local, national and supranational political influence. For example, membership of the European Union is conditional to member states' adherence to the Social Chapter of European Union law.