De invoering van kinderbijslag in Nederland. Kostwinning en standsbesef

Samenvatting

The Introduction of Child Allowances in the Netherlands. Breadwinning and Status Consciousness. This article reports on the results of research on the sociogenesis of child allowances in the Netherlands between 1900 and 1940. It deals with the tensions between family life and the political domain, with the lengthening of childhood in an industrializing society as social scenery. During industrialization, adults came to invest more energy, money, and time in the future of their children, in families, and in society in general. As parents, they started to use birth control, while the fate of coming generations became more and more a collective concern. As the variety in families with regard to the number of children increased and small families became the norm, the provision for large families became a problem for breadwinning fathers. At the outset, this problem was negotiated between employees and employers, and the result was a typical employers' arrangement, articulated according to a male-breadwinner logic. The regulation of labor relations was the main issue, promoting the interests of children was of minor importance, and child allowances did not have the function of reducing the inequality between social classes. In the history of child allowances in the Netherlands, one can distinguish three periods. Starting in the second decade in the 20th century, child allowances were the result of local initiatives. In 1939, child allowances were regulated at a national level, specifically, in the Kinderbijslagwet law, which applied to all employees and was financed by employers and employees. In both periods, the regulations for child allowances held that families received more as fathers earned more. In 1963, the Algemene KinderBijslagwet was accepted. This national insurance benefit (volksverzekering) was financed by general taxes. The connection between the amount of the allowance and the level of the wage of fathers was broken; rich and poor parents got the same amount of money for their children, dependent on parity and age of the child. 63 References. Adapted from the source document.