| Abstract: | Abstract In 1901 the town of Gent appropriated a municipal grant to societies paying benefit to their members in case of unemployment. The decision was founded on a committee report principally written by the lawyer Louis Varlez. The societies should claim individual contributions of the members constituting the right to unemployment allowance under certain conditions. In order to prevent a dissipating risk selection the sphere of activity of a society should join with some society existing before. Such societies had been erected at several places as well in Belgium as in other states, in Gent as early as in 1867. In most cases they were attached to trade unions. It may thus be said that a subsidized unemployment insurance was — for the first time — introduced in Gent 1901. The principles applied are usually called the »Gentsystem». In general accordance with this system state subsidized unemployment insurance was introduced in France 1905, in Norway 1906 and in Denmark 1907. Later several states have established unemployment insurance on a voluntary basis. In modern voluntary state insurance, however, a decisivestress is laid upon the fact that the allowance shall be regulated in accordance with the general rules for public relief of unemployment. Some conditions of the insurance scheme are thus compulsorily laid down in the regulations concerning the subsidy. In some states the unemployment insurance has been wholly established on a compulsory basis. For the first time a compulsory insurance was introduced in England in 1911 covering certain occupational groups. Compulsory unemployment insurance has then been erected in Italy 1919, Poland 1924, Bulgaria 1925 and Norway 1938. In 1938 a law bearing on a change of the voluntary unemployment insurance of Belgium to a compulsory one is being prepared. |
