Social protection has been one of the most popular instruments for promoting human development across the globe. However, the great majority of the global population is not or only partly covered by social protection. Especially in developing countries it is often the very poorest who do not receive essential social benefits. This is highly problematic since inclusive social protection is assumed to be a key factor for national productivity, global economic growth and domestic stability. Social protection in many developing countries can be traced back to colonial times. Surprisingly, the influence of colonialism has been a blind spot for existing theories and empirical studies of comparative social policy. Hence, the main objective of this project is to systematically understand how colonialism has shaped the remarkable differences in social protection and its postcolonial outcomes. As a result of this project, we have compiled the Comparative Social Protection Dataset which is to include novel historical data on social protection and policy-relevant actors in colonial Africa, in particular for British and French colonies. For the purpose of primary data collection, we relied on official and other statistical publications that we accessed through a variety of archives. For several indicators, we can draw on available secondary data sources. With regards to policy-relevant actors, data on economic actors has and data on missions and trade unions has been collected. Furthermore, we conducted case studies in four former colonies (two French and two British ones) and elucidated the causal mechanisms that link colonialism to social protection. Overall, our results show that the colonial legacy play an important role for early and contemporary social policies and shed light on the conditions under which social protection is expanding in the developing world today.
