EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

             EHS Abstract Submission
                    (c) 1996 EH.Net
-----------------------------------------------------------
              Name:  J. C. Herbert Emery
               Email:  hemery at acs.ucalgary.ca
         Institution:  University of Calgary  

         Co-author:  George N. Emery
                            emery at sscl.uwo.ca
                            University of Western Ontario  

             Title:  The IOOF and Sickness Insurance in the
United States and Canada, 1850-1929  

  Internet Address
of abstracted work:   Not available on the Internet  

           By mail:  
                     J.C. Herbert Emery
                     Dept. of Economics
                     University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW
                     Calgary, Alberta
                     T2N 1N4 Canada
 
          Language:  English
 
          Abstract:
        Before the 1920s lost income, not health-care services,
was the major cost of sickness.  Friendly societies were the
major source of working-class insurance against lost income.
After 1890, however, they began to withdraw from the
sickness-insurance field.  The paper analyzes the declining trend
for sickness insurance in the International Order of Odd Fellows
(IOOF), the largest of the friendly societies.	Section I
discusses its market for insurance, benefit system, and the
declining trend for its sick benefit.  Section II rejects three
possible explanations for the declining trend: financial
weaknesses of its lodge system; trends for competition; and
"changing times" during the 1920s. Section III argues that a
long-term rise in the opportunity cost of the benefit triggered
the IOOF's decision to make it optional.  Over time, the IOOF
developed a major new priority, IOOF homes, and allowed the
constant-dollar value of the benefit to decline.  As sickness
insurance became available from other sources, it became less
effective for recruiting members.  Odd Fellows experienced a
rising trend for wages and tended to accumulate savings as they
aged.  In response, they came to prefer self-insurance to
fraternal insurance.  Effectively the sick benefit became "young
men's insurance" in an "older men's order."

 
      Bibliography:  Emery, J. C. Herbert, and George N. Emery,
"The IOOF and Sickness Insurance in the United States and Canada,
1850-1929." Paper prepared for the ASSA/Cliometric Society
Session, January 1997, New Orleans.

 
                    Subject:  W
   Geographical Area:  7
        Country/Region:  United States and Canada
             Time Period:  8