The obstacles to the development of social insurance in Spain before 1936: the case of unemployment insurance

Abstract

The emergence of social insurances in Spain has been usually linked to the advent of industrialization, the development of a reformist ideology by the political elites, and the demands of the labor movement. Not questioning the role of these factors, this paper suggests that the introduction of compulsory unemployment insurance was hampered by the opposition of landowners and small-sized firms, which were predominant in Spain. At the same time, the inability to reach Danish or Swedish-style agreements to finance social policy through indirect taxes hindered the introduction of the subsidized voluntary unemployment insurance, which would have needed a big amount of public subsidies to succeed.