This article examines the impact of the two world wars on welfare legislation in 16 western countries. We use Poisson regressions to test our hypothesis that war was a catalyst of welfare legislation, especially in countries that were heavily exposed to the dreadful effects of war. By welfare legislation, we mean the inaugural adoption and major reforms across four programmes (old age and disability benefits, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment compensation and family allowances). Our findings suggest that both world wars are key factors for explaining the timing of comprehensive welfare reforms and outweigh the significance of other factors such as regime type or level of economic development.

中文翻译：

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西方国家的世界大战与福利立法

本文考察了两次世界大战对16个西方国家福利立法的影响。我们使用泊松回归来检验我们的假设，即战争是福利立法的催化剂，特别是在那些饱受战争可怕影响的国家中。所谓福利立法，是指四个计划（老年和残障津贴，疾病和产妇津贴，失业金和家庭津贴）的就职采用和重大改革。我们的发现表明，两次世界大战都是解释全面福利改革时机的关键因素，其重要性超过了政权类型或经济发展水平等其他因素的重要性。