An Old Poor Law for the New Europe? Reconciling Local Solidarity with Labour Mobility in Early Modern England

This chapter focuses on welfare and pension benefits in the European Union. It describes how tensions between labour mobility and social solidarity affect the harmonization of social welfare regimes across the Union. An analogous situation existed at the time when a national Poor Law policy was first established. Research on how the Old Poor Law operated suggests that a number of features may be transposed to Europe in the twenty-first century. This research has itself benefitted from looking at the Old Poor Law in the broader context of the European experience with poor relief during these centuries.