For hundreds of years,

until the rise of nation-states, European monasteries
operated a kind of trans-national welfare network,
employing the poor and disabled and offering
doctrinal education to the talented.

Men were employed in farmyards, workshops,
fields, gardens and construction.
Women were mainly restricted to 'feminine' activities
in convents and nunneries. 
Thus were many serious social issues solved -
no bureaucracy involved.