The Beveridge Report

The Beveridge Report

Since the 1940s, there was intense debate about capitalism, communism, and socialism, with some countries even willing to wage war to support their politico-economic ideology of choice. Nonetheless, the subsequent clash of communism happened simultaneously with the crisis of capitalism. Marxist ideology was firmly rejected within the West and in particular, Britain (Whitehead, 2014). Society favored the privatization of industries and freeing the market, which later led to the rise of inequality in Britain. While the rich became richer, the poor continued to languish in poverty due to income inequality, which prompted scholars, politicians, and other commentators to look for ways of elevating the poor. Two scholars, Miles and Beveridge, became the leading proponent of the middle way between libertarianism and collectivism in the post-World War II Britain. Although their proposals were not new in academia and political discourse, the political and economic environment at the time increased the popularity of those proposals among the member of the Public (Whitehead, 2014). The Beveridge Report became regarded as the foundation of the Post World War welfare in British society. It was the most famous social welfare reform reports in the West at the time. The purpose of the Report was to offer citizens protection as a matter of right and abolish the infamous household means tests, which were the main form of public relief in 1930s Britain. The Report, which was circulated around Britain and throughout the colonies, turned Beveridge into an overnight hero (Marcuzzo, 2010). It influenced debates about social welfare in the post-World War Europe and the Americas. The Beveridge Report, therefore, represented the culmination of citizenship rights in Europe as it mitigated the dangers of capitalism while at the same time saving the society from falling into communism.

The Beveridge report claimed to offer citizens a way of eliminating poverty by addressing want, idleness, disease, squalor, and ignorance, which were known as the five Beveridgean giants. One cannot provide a proper assessment of the Beveridge Report without discussing the background, which made it popular. The Report appeared at a time when Britain had been ravished by two wars. Secondly, in the 1920s, Britain and other Western European countries experienced the great slump that caused massive unemployment and wage cuts driving more people into poverty (Komine, 2010). The majority of the British citizens were living in a state of social insecurity. The government had invested much in the war, also leaving very little for social welfare. In 1940, due to the outbreak of WWII, the government was worried that another great slump would happen and therefore commissioned a committee to devise some form of social insurance. Sir William Beveridge, therefore, sought to contribute to this committee through his Report on social welfare.

The Report was meant to cover everybody, both the rich and the poor. This is evident in its division of the population into six segments.  The first category includes all people working for a wage, including those receiving a weekly, monthly, or quarterly pay package. The second category included all people who were gainfully occupied. This means people who owned their businesses, such as lawyers and doctors (Marcuzzo, 2010). The third category included housewives of working age. This made it the first time that the housewives were considered for some form of social welfare. The fourth category included people who live with independent incomes as they cannot work because of some form of disability. This covered people who had a massive want. The fifth category covered people below the working age-children. The last category included old people who cannot work (Komine, 2010).  The Report, therefore, sought to safeguard each of these groups from wants at certain times in their life from the cradle to the grave, in addition to being entitled to medical treatment, children allowances after the first one, and funeral grants. However, the Report recommended that the medical benefits be provided separately outside its scope.

The Report was quite extensive in the way it offered to provide social insurance. The figures that had been provided for each category were only an approximate and subject to be varied depending on the cost of living at any given time (Glasby et al., 2011). The Report also does not envisage the rate of the contribution varying on wages, as is the case with other countries. Another key requirement of the Report is that a husband and wife are treated as a team such that benefits do not go to the husband but both adults. Therefore, while a single man would receive about 24 pounds per week, a married couple would receive 40 pounds as they encompass two adults (Glasby et al., 2011). In conclusion, some of the benefits proposed under the Report include the marriage grand, funeral grand, industrial disability pension, maternity benefit, training benefit, children allowance, among others.

Question 2

Over the years, subsequent feminism waves and movements have contributed significantly to social policy across western nations.  Feminists have particularly provided important aspects about the state of welfare in Britain. Prominent figures in the feminist movement, such as Pat Thane, have published some thought-provoking work about the attitudes of organized women towards the state welfare (DiCenzo & Motuz, 2016). Therefore, the feminist movement has been essential in challenging some established ideologies and norms through research. One of the most prominent investigations that feminist analysis challenged is the Beveridge Report. Nonetheless, the credibility of some of the arguments presented by the movement has been questioned first by scholars from other fields and secondly to subscribers of the movement who have a different perspective. Some of their assertions are especially flawed because they are not grounded o empirical research, and therefore constraining their value (DiCenzo & Motuz, 2016).  Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the main contention of most feminists is that the development of state welfare, especially in the post-world war period, was based on class struggles and therefore ignoring the contributions of gender-based interests. Therefore, while the post-world war strengthened the labor movement and enhanced the social-democratic programs, it did not address the aspirations of women, especially with regard to equal employment opportunity and equal pay.

The 1970s was when a substantial part of the British welfare underwent significant changes that were championed by feminist writers. Initially, the majority of the feminist movement had adopted Marxist ideologies with regard to state welfare (O’Brien, 2010). However, subsequent movements claimed that the Marxist ideology was gender-blind, and therefore, it was efficient to address social welfare on the basis of class struggle alone. They argue that this perspective ignores the fact that the welfare state benefits from the unpaid social and biological contribution of women both at home and work (Krook, & Mackay, 2010). Therefore, the welfare state was designed to silence women in the public sphere by confining them to the private sphere where their rights were still not recognized. In order to explain this point further, the socialist feminists have incorporated the concept of patriarchy into the Marxist theory that forms the basis of social welfare. Even more recently, feminists have added the strand of racism (O’Brien, 2010). Therefore, in the ’80s, feminists coined the term intersectional to explain the conjunction between gender, race, and other strands into social welfare. However, the majority of feminists differ on the degree in which these strands affect social welfare. Social feminists have therefore covered a wide range of social and political issues to the extent that another branch of feminisms, intersectional feminism, was created.

As noted above, feminists have critiqued state welfare in the West for failing to consider the role of gender imbalances in furthering poverty and inequality, especially for women. Social feminists especially critique William Beveridge and his Report for this failure. They argue that despite the strides which the Report achieved in developing welfare programs in post-war Europe, Beveridge inadvertently reduced women, especially married ones, into second class citizens. They note that Beveridge achieved this effect in three ways. First, his Report recommended that marriage working women should pay less contributions to national insurance, which caused them to receive less benefits (Fudge, 2014). Beveridge’s made this proposal based on a patriarchal belief that when the married woman was making the contributions, she was doing so on her behalf. On the other hand, when the married man was making the contributions, they were doing so on behalf of the entire family (Krook & Mackay, 2010). Secondly, Beveridge also included controversial provisions on what would happen to women if they opted out of paying the contributions. Family poverty caused a long of women to opt-out from paying contributions, which had disastrous consequences as a large proportion of them were locked out of receiving benefits (Fudge, 2014). Lastly, Beveridge is criticized for assuming that the majority of married women would opt out of work to be supported by their husbands as per Victorian England traditions. As a result, married women were required to rescind any form of benefit they were entitled to based on their previous insurance (Fudge, 2014). Part of the reasons why Beveridge failed terribly in representing women’s interests is because society was still structured on right-wing conservatism and patriarchy greatly determined social relations. Therefore, Beveridge failed to predict a large influx of women into the working class as a result of the social and economic changes that resulted from WWII. In conclusion, the majority of the work done by feminists is to correct the prejudice and oppression of women by the working class and their denial of equal access to welfare programs at the same level as men.