Vieux et pauvres: le patrimoine des personnes âgées de 1820 à 1940

Jérôme Bourdieu and Lionel Kesztenbaum

Research Unit Working Papers from Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquee, INRA

Abstract: Starting with controversies on workers pensions at the beginning of the 19th century, many debates occurred on individuals' willingness to save for their old days. However it remains difficult to assess old people capacity to live their old age. We investigate the situation of old people before the introduction of pension schemes. Using probate records, we compute the rate of individuals who where able to live on their wealth, by themselves. We conclude that life-cycle savings were largely insufficient for French people to live on it. Above all, the situation of old people, after a continuous improve during the 19th century, get worse in the 1900's: large parts of the elderly population have no or only little means of survival. Moreover, access to retirement is also very limited, depending on gender or occupation.

Keywords: Epargne; accumulation du patrimoine; retraite; vieillesse; France 19-20e siècles. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N33 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2008-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-his and nep-lab
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lea:leawpi:0801

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