This decade saw the enactments of women’s suffrage, labour legislation, and old-age pensions.[i] Hospitals existed as a charitable aid system and pensions were available for the aged and widowed, alongside existing provision by religious and other voluntary philanthropic organisations.
Anxieties about declining Pākehā birth rates also raised interest in maternal health.[ii] Institutions started to come under public criticism and boarding-out became the preferred method. Rescue homes for ‘fallen’ women, prisoner’s aid societies, shipwreck relief associations, sailor’s rests and other voluntary and benevolent societies were in the main cities by the 1890s.[iii]
These actions created a network of ‘social services’ as the state played a greater role in the lives of its citizens. The country carved out an international reputation as a ‘social laboratory’.
Footnotes
- [i] go to main content Margaret Tennant, Past Judgement: Social Policy in New Zealand History, co-edited with Bronwyn Dalley, 2004, p. 12.
- [ii] go to main content Bronwyn Dalley, Family Matters, Wellington, 1998, p. 14.; Tennant, 2004, p. 9.; The April report: report of the Royal Commission on Social Policy’, Volume 1: New Zealand Today, New Zealand Royal Commission on Social Policy, Wellington, 1988, p. 56.
- [iii] go to main content Tennant, 2004, p. 42.