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The stability of voluntarism: financing social care in early modern Dutch towns compared with the English Poor Law, c. 1600–1800

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  • Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk
  • Daniëlle Teeuwen

Abstract

This article aims to compare the financing of two apparently entirely different systems of pre-industrial welfare: urban institutional welfare in the federal Dutch Republic and the national Elizabethan Poor Law in Britain. By analysing a new dataset on the income and expenditure of five Dutch towns, we conclude that, despite the absence of uniform legislation, Dutch poor relief was viable at least up until the 1790s, even in times of severe crises and declining real wages. This was obtained by the – in monetary terms – remarkably stable donations by Dutch citizens, mostly through regular collections, as well as careful financial management of the charitable funds.

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  • Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk & Daniëlle Teeuwen, 2014. "The stability of voluntarism: financing social care in early modern Dutch towns compared with the English Poor Law, c. 1600–1800," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 18(1), pages 82-105.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ereveh:v:18:y:2014:i:1:p:82-105.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ereh/het014
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    Cited by:

    1. Bas Bavel & Auke Rijpma, 2016. "How important were formalized charity and social spending before the rise of the welfare state? A long-run analysis of selected western European cases, 1400–1850," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(1), pages 159-187, February.
    2. Hengstmengel, Joost & Verburg, Rudi, 2023. "The Uneventful Reception of Mandeville’s Ideas in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic, or the Mysterious Case of the Missing Outrage," SocArXiv temz2, Center for Open Science.

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