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Membership in Mutual Health Insurance Societies: The Case of Swedish Manufacturing, circa 1900

Stanfors, Maria LU ; Karlsson, Tobias LU ; Andersson, Lars-Fredrik and Eriksson, Liselotte (2022) In Lund Papers in Economic History
Abstract
Industrialization brought significant economic and social changes. As a response to the risk of income loss due to illness and workplace accidents, mutual health insurance was the main financial vehicle for workers at the turn of the twentieth century across the Western world. We studied individual and firm-level determinants of membership in health insurance societies among male workers in Swedish manufacturing by using matched employer- employee data from the tobacco, printing, and mechanical engineering industries. Such data are extremely rare but important for our purpose. They cover all workers (i.e., members and non-members) and firms in a specific year around 1900 (N>12,000). In the years before the first statutory attempts to... (More)
Industrialization brought significant economic and social changes. As a response to the risk of income loss due to illness and workplace accidents, mutual health insurance was the main financial vehicle for workers at the turn of the twentieth century across the Western world. We studied individual and firm-level determinants of membership in health insurance societies among male workers in Swedish manufacturing by using matched employer- employee data from the tobacco, printing, and mechanical engineering industries. Such data are extremely rare but important for our purpose. They cover all workers (i.e., members and non-members) and firms in a specific year around 1900 (N>12,000). In the years before the first statutory attempts to improve working conditions, we find remarkably high rates of membership, especially in mechanical engineering. We also find an association between membership and age, which is mainly a difference between younger and older adults, but the societies’ egalitarian pricing gave workers no reason to defer enrolment until a higher age related to health problems. Social interaction may explain early membership in the printing and tobacco industries, where we find a positive association between membership among older workers and the enrolment of younger workers.
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
in
Lund Papers in Economic History
issue
2022:238
pages
36 pages
project
Stronger together? A micro-history of collective action and working life in turn of the last century Sweden
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
27a6b991-2afc-49ef-9328-4a48c9546192
date added to LUP
2022-03-15 13:24:33
date last changed
2022-09-01 10:55:22
@misc{27a6b991-2afc-49ef-9328-4a48c9546192,
  abstract     = {{Industrialization brought significant economic and social changes. As a response to the risk of  income loss due to illness and workplace accidents, mutual health insurance was the main financial vehicle for workers at the turn of the twentieth century across the Western world. We studied individual and firm-level determinants of membership in health insurance societies among male workers in Swedish manufacturing by using matched employer- employee data from the tobacco, printing, and mechanical engineering industries. Such data are extremely rare but important for our purpose. They cover all workers (i.e., members and non-members) and firms in a specific year around 1900 (N&gt;12,000). In the years before the first statutory attempts to improve working conditions, we find remarkably high rates of membership, especially in mechanical engineering. We also find an association between membership and age, which is mainly a difference between younger and older adults, but the  societies’ egalitarian pricing gave workers no reason to defer enrolment until a higher age related to health problems. Social interaction may explain early membership in the printing and tobacco industries, where we find a positive association between membership among older workers and the enrolment of younger workers.  <br/>}},
  author       = {{Stanfors, Maria and Karlsson, Tobias and Andersson, Lars-Fredrik and Eriksson, Liselotte}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2022:238}},
  series       = {{Lund Papers in Economic History}},
  title        = {{Membership in Mutual Health Insurance Societies:  The Case of Swedish Manufacturing, circa 1900}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/115314046/LUPEH_238.pdf}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}