Thèse-Université de Toulouse.

Thèse--Université de Paris. / "Bibliographie": p. [232]-233.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

Industrial Life Insurance (ILI) was introduced in Sweden in the beginning of the 1900s. Following models already used in the United Kingdom and the United States, this insurance was specifically aimed at manual labourers, promising pension savings and compensation to surviving relatives. The insurance was an immediate success, with almost three million insurance policies in force by the mid-1900s. ILI was characterised by extensive and carefully monitored marketing practices. By managing an army of agents, the companies sold policies and collected premiums on a regular basis in the homes of the insured. The purpose of the dissertation is to analyse the development of a commercial business with social policy aspirations, and how it interacted with other social security institutions. How could ILI thrive in the emerging Swedish welfare state that, according to existing research, allowed little space for market-based welfare alternatives? The dissertation also seeks to contribute to a broader understanding of the contemporary “welfare market” in Sweden today. From a perspective of welfare formation as a social process, the emergence and expansion of ILI is interpreted as a phenomenon that has shaped, and been shaped by, the social policy arena. The insurance industry’s capacity to adapt to the changing ambitions of the state in this arena is emphasised. Furthermore, its leading representatives’ ability to continuously locate the role of life insurance in the shifting landscape of social policy is underlined. By locating welfare in separate but complementary public and private spheres, the industry contributed to the shaping of the compulsory pension scheme introduced in 1913 and the overall regulation of insurance in the mid-twentieth century. The social security of Swedish citizens was now to be ensured according to the vision of complementary spheres that the insurance industry had advocated for almost fifty years. The insurance companies’ commercial activities are analysed as a form of governmentality, where the agency system is scrutinized as an interventionist practice that created a long lasting relationship between the companies and the working classes. The dissertation shows how the industrialists’ role as “insurance experts” was used to influence public policies. As public figures and experts on various committees, representatives of the industry advocated a welfare formation that left ample space for their own business interests. The scientisation of security was also essential in creating a product where social aspirations and commercial logics could be united. The success of ILI thus rested on the interaction with the state apparatus. An arena of social policy was established where commercial companies were to be the supplier of all welfare above the level of “meagre basic security”. Through intense marketing measures, commercial actors influenced the perceptions of security and welfare. The process of welfare formation led to the internalisation of commercial ideals about social security that now constitutes an essential dimension of the Swedish welfare state.

The aim of this thesis is to understand the diffusion process of Swedish life insurance during the period c. 1830-1950, with the specific aim to understand financial modernization and social mobilization as reflected in the diffusion of life insurance to less well-to-do classes and women. In contrast to British and American experiences, the results of this thesis show that the rural classes played an important role in the diffusion of Swedish life insurance. The thesis shows that demand-side factors such as income and urbanisation cannot fully explain this diffusion of life insurance, and why additionally, non-quantitative factors need to be addressed. It is shown how cultural preferences assist in understanding the development of industrial life insurance in different countries. It is also stressed that women, in their capacity as policyholders, beneficiaries of life policies, as dependents, and their limited property rights, constituted the conditions under which the life insurance industry had to adjust and operate. In sum, female policyholders, cultural representations of women and legal constraints on women, constituted an important subset of the 'rules of the game' for the life insurance industry. Important results of the thesis are that female policyholders constituted a large part of the policyholders in the largest industrial life insurance company already in the early twentieth century. It is furthermore shown that life insurance representatives were members in organizations of the women's movement and that they acted for married women's property rights in parliament. It is also argued that different notions of 'a good death', as reflected in funeral practices, contributed to different developments of private and public insurance in Sweden and the United States. By widening the concept of 'business' and recognizing the cultural and social contexts under which the industry operated, this thesis highlights the interaction between business and social change. / "Den enskildes risk och det gemensamma åtagandet" Jan Wallanders och Tom Hedelius Stiftelse Tore Browaldhs stiftelse

The life and career of Albert Wicker, Jr. (1869-1928), reflects the growth of the new urban African-American middle class in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the early years of the twentieth century. He spent his career working for advances in education while using memberships in churches, Masonic groups, insurance companies, benevolent societies, and educational leagues to achieve his personal and professional goals. The networks created by him and others along the way illustrate not only complexity of black life in New Orleans but also the growing tendency of differing ethnic groups to work together to achieve common economic, political, social objectives.