Widowhood in Norway: From the Poor Law Society to the Welfare Society. The Case of Norway, 1875-1964

Abstract

This article analyzes gender and social class as analytical categories to explain how
widows have profited the Norwegian social welfare iniciatives between 1875 and 1964. The
author analyzes mainly the economic problems faced by the widows of the so-called respectable
working class and middle class. She stablishes how for those that have no other economic
options poor relief was the last resort until the aproval of Widow's and Mothwr's Insurance Act
in 1964. She points out that, in general, the impact of industrialization, the gendered division
of labor and, finally, the ideology of domesticity helped to define the rights within the social
security schemas on the basis of paid work and with no relation to the domestic one. Therefore,
those were always rights reserved only to young and unmarried women. For the others the
solutions were until after the second World War private, individual o collective, iniciatives.