Social security and welfare

Social security is a term used to describe what arrangements a community or State makes to provide assistance to those of its members who are in need of the necessities of life or are entrapped in natural disasters. As I write this piece, I hear from the radio that the Vice-President Saulos Chilima has been to Karonga visiting people who have been displaced by floods. Handling contingencies is part of what is called social security and welfare.

Because of the urbanisation and industrialisation going on in Africa, ageless problems are recurring. Remedies that worked in the past are proving worthless in the current environment. New problems among us require invention of new institutions and corresponding solutions. Before we narrate how security system operates in both developed and developing countries, we should recap the systems that were used in pre-industrial days.

In pre-industrial days, the basic social security unit was the family. Even in present industrial societies, the family is the basic prep for life. The difference is in the fact that in pre-industrial societies, the family was larger and extended. In industrial and urbanised communities, it is the nuclear family that prevails. By nuclear family, anthropologists mean husband, wife and children excluding relatives.

In extended families, parents, children and grandchildren lived together and helped one another. Children who lost parents could be received into the extended family as cousins and nieces.

A chief was the protector of his or her tribe. He was referred as rescued and care of the orphans. To be able to fulfill his role, the chief demanded communal services from his people especially in cultivating his fields. It was necessary that he should have big fields cultivates by the people to ensure big harvests. In times of famine or natural disasters, the chief was expected to provide the food to those who needed help.

When these days people talk of inheriting widows, they think men were doing so for sensual reasons, they do not consider the social security aspect of the custom. In the past, there were tasks performed by a woman only and those by a man only. For example, men cut down poles and rafters, constructed huts and the women kneaded mud and daubed the huts. Men went out to the bush to hunt animals, women cooked the meat. Both man and his wife went to the garden to do cultivations but the man stayed longer while the woman went home to deal with domestic chores. When the husband dies, for a woman alone, life was very hard. A relative inherited her to perform the services that her husband used to perform and help look after the fatherless children.

The coming of Europeans to Africa; first the missionaries, then administrators ushered in an element of social security and social welfare that we tend to take for granted. This was the provision of free medical care. People paid school fees for their children but they went to government hospitals and obtained free services. For most people health services were valued more than educational services.

In industrialised countries such as Britain, at first, through the Poor Law Act parliament required each municipality to take care of its poor. Able bodied people were required to do public works in order to obtain assistance. Churches and other charitable bodies also looked after the poor.

Poor people had no right to vote for members of parliament. Hence governments had little concern for the poor; they saw them as lazy, slothful and thoughtless of their future. When large numbers of people gathered to work for firms during the industrial revolution, they organised themselves into trade unions. Apart from demanding higher pay, the union demanded job security in place of unfair dismissal, payment of worker during sickness, unemployment relief and compensation for injuries at work.

As the State became more democratised, it took extra interest in the welfare of workers. First, the government legislated for occupational accidents, sickness and pension. The pioneer was Germany in 1883, under Chancellor Bismarck. The first unemployment insurance scheme was introduced in France in 1906. Maternity benefits were generally included in insurance schemes. Civil servants were among the first beneficiaries of social security schemes.. The state had to lead by example. n

To be continued….