Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ph5wq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T07:58:54.231Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Welfare State and Labor Mobility: The Impact of Bismarck's Social Legislation on German Emigration before World War I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

DAVID KHOUDOUR-CASTÉRAS*
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Finanzas, Gobierno y Relaciones Internacionales, Carrera 1 No. 12-66, Bogotá, Colombia. E-mail: david.khoudour@uexternado.edu.co.

Abstract

The rapid decline of German emigration before World War I constitutes a puzzle that traditional explanations have difficulty in solving. The article shows that the social legislation implemented by Bismarck during the 1880s—the most developed at the time—played a key role in this process. Indeed, candidates for migration considered not only the gap between “direct wages” (labor earnings) in the United States and Germany, but also the differential in “indirect wages,” that is, social benefits. In that way, Bismarck's insurance system partly offset low wage rates in Germany and furthered the fall of the emigration rate.

      O sprecht! warum zogt ihr von dannen?
      Das Neckartal hat Wein und Korn;
      Der Schwarzwald steht voll finstrer Tannen,
      Im Spessart klingt des Ålplers Horn.
      Wie wird es in den fremden Wäldern
      Euch nach der Heimatberge Grün,
      Nach Deutschlands gelben Weizenfeldern,
      Nach seinen Rebenhügeln ziehn!
    Ferdinand Freiligrath1

Type
ARTICLES
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bry, Gerhard. Wages in Germany, 1871–1945. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Costa, Dora. The Evolution of Retirement: An American Economic History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Däbritz, Walther. Bochumer Verein für Bergbau und Gußstahlfabrikation in Bochum. Neun Jahrzehnte seiner Geschichte im Rahmen der Wirtschaft des Ruhrbezirks. Düsseldorf, 1934.Google Scholar
Desai, Ashok. Real Wages in Germany, 1871–1913. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Easterlin, Richard. “Influences in European Overseas Emigration Before World War I.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 9, no. 3 (1961): 331–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferenczi, Imre, and Willcox, Walter. International Migrations. Volume 1: Statistics. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1929.Google Scholar
Flora, Peter. “Solution or Source of Crises? The Welfare State in Historical Perspective.” In The Emergence of the Welfare State in Britain and Germany, 1850-1950, edited by Wolfgang Mommsen, 343–89. London: Croom Helm, 1981.Google Scholar
Gemery, Henry. “Immigrants and Emigrants: International Migration and the US Labor Market in the Great Depression.” In Migration and the International Labor Market: 1850-1939, edited by Timothy Hatton and Jeffrey Williamson, 175–99. London, New York: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Gould, John. “European Inter-Continental Emigration, 1815–1914: Patterns and Causes.” Journal of European Economic History 8, no. 3 (1979): 593679.Google Scholar
Grant, Oliver. “Globalisation Versus De-Coupling: German Emigration and the Evolution of the Atlantic Labour Market 1870–1913.” Explorations in Economic History 40 (2003): 387418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatton, Timothy, and Williamson, Jeffrey. “What Drove the Mass Migrations from Europe in the Late Nineteenth Century?” Population and Development Review 20, no. 4 (1994): 533–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatton, Timothy, and Williamson, Jeffrey. “International Migration 1850–1939: An Economic Survey.” In Migration and the International Labor Market: 1850-1939, edited by Timothy Hatton and Jeffrey Williamson, 3–32. London, New York: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Walther. Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1965.Google Scholar
Kamphoefner, Walter. The Westfalians: From Germany to Missouri. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirk, Dudley. Europe's Population in the Interwar Years. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1946.Google Scholar
Kuczynski, Jürgen. Die Geschichte der Lage der Arbeiter in Deutschland von 1800 bis in die Gegenwart. Volume 1: 1880–1932. Berlin,third edition, 1947.Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter. Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. The World Economy: Historical Statistics. Paris: OECD, Development Centre Studies, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millis, Harry, and Montgomery, Royal. The Economics of Labor. Volume 2: Labor's Risks and Social Insurance. New York and London,McGraw-Hill Book Company, inc, 1938.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Brian. International Historical Statistics: Europe, 1750–1993. London: Macmillan Reference Ltd, fifth edition, 2003.Google Scholar
Moltmann, Günter. “300 Years of German Emigration to North America.” In Germans to America: 300 Years of Immigration, 1683 to 1983, edited by Günter Moltmann. Stuttgart: Institut for Foreign Cultural relations, 1982.Google Scholar
Pflanze, Otto. Bismarck and the Development of Germany. Volume 3: The Period of Fortification, 1880–1898. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Pinson, Roppel. Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization. New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., second edition, 1966.Google Scholar
Romer, Christina. “The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered: New Estimates of Gross National Product, 1869Princeton1908.” Journal of Political Economy 97, no. 1 (1989): 137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich. Berlin: Puttkammer & Mühlbrecht, 18801915.Google Scholar
Tampke, Jürgen. “Bismarck's Social Legislation: A Genuine Breakthrough?” In The Emergence of the Welfare State in Britain and Germany, 1850-1950, edited by Wolfgang Mommsen, 71–83. London: Croom Helm, 1981.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the U.S., Colonial Times to 1970. Washington, DC: GPO, 1975.Google Scholar
Weaver, Carolyn. “Support of the Elderly before the Depression: Individual and Collective Arrangements.” Cato Journal 7, no. 2 (1987): 503–25.Google Scholar
Wegge, Simone. “Chain Migration and Information Networks: Evidence from Nineteenth Century Hesse-Cassel.” This Journal 58, no. 4 (1998): 957–86.Google Scholar
Williamson, Jeffrey. “Globalization, Convergence, and History.” This Journal 56, no. 2 (1996): 277306.Google Scholar
Williamson, Jeffrey. “The Evolution of Global Markets since 1830: Background Evidence and Hypotheses.” Explorations in Economic History 32, no. 2 (1995): 141–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wirth, Max. Grundzüge der National-ökonomie. Köln: DuMont-Schauberg, 1881.Google Scholar