Bismarck was strongly influenced by two circumstances in introducing these social institutions. The first was the direct repression mentioned above. Starting with two assassination attempts on the emperor in 1878, he enacted the Anti-Socialist Law and began to suppress the socialist and labor movements severely. The second was providing social protection legislation to give the working class material benefits. Bismarck's social insurance is often likened to 'the carrot and the stick,' because policies of repression and appeasement were used at the same time. Germany enacted the world's first social insurance legislation, which can be explained by its tradition of Germanic law with collectivist tendencies. It was also a reaction to the rising socialist movement, aimed at finding a way to create a direct bond between the state and workers. But Bismarck's social insurance laws, far from achieving their original goal of breaking up social democracy and the union movement, raised workers' participation and rights consciousness and strengthened workers' organizations. In the end, contrary to their original political intent, Bismarck's social insurance laws contributed to the development of social welfare.

Germany later enacted an unemployment insurance law in 1919 and the Federal Social Assistance Act in 1962. The latter is significant in that its Article 4 expressly recognized the right to social assistance benefits as an enforceable claim. The Federal Maintenance Act was enacted in 1950, the Equalization of Burdens Act in 1952, the Federal Expellees Act and the Foreign Pensions Insurance Act in 1953, and the Federal Compensation Act in 1956. In the 1960s Germany enjoyed steady economic growth, on the basis of which welfare administration law, centered on social insurance law, was expanded in both structure and content. In 1969 miners' pension insurance and the federal miners' insurance fund were integrated, and after World War II the division of East and West Germany and West Germany's economic recovery led to a period of reorganizing social insurance law. Development continued, as in 1975 when insurance benefits for abortion procedures were not recognized under health insurance law, and this quantitative expansion of social security largely accompanied West Germany's economic growth. After reunification in 1990, social security spending became excessive and Germany faced great difficulties. To overcome this, Germany carried out a pension reform in 1992. German social welfare law has continued to develop and change since.

Japan first attempted Western-style social security legislation with the Meiji Restoration.

Note: Bismarck's three social insurance laws were the Sickness Insurance Act (1883), the Accident Insurance Act (1884) and the Old Age and Invalidity Insurance Act (1889); the paper's date of 1887 for the last should be 1889. Germany's unemployment insurance law (the Employment Services and Unemployment Insurance Act) was enacted on July 16, 1927, not in 1919, and the Federal Social Assistance Act was enacted on June 30, 1961 and took effect on July 1, 1962. Korean dates follow the paper's summary; the National Pension Act was a 1986 full revision of the 1973 National Welfare Pension Act. The source of the paper's statement about abortion insurance benefits in 1975 could not be confirmed.