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Historisk tidskrift 129:2 • 2009

Innehåll (Contents) 2009:2

Uppsatser (Articles)

Att förlita sig på barnen eller själv hantera försörjningsbehovet. Sparbeteenden inför ålderdomen under 1800- och tidigt 1900-tal

Dan Bäcklund och Kristina Lilja

Fulltext (pdf)

Summary

To depend on one’s children or to depend on oneself: saving behaviours for old-age in 19th and early 20th century Sweden

This study discusses strategies for saving for old age in Sweden during the 19th and early 20th century. Two earlier savings strategies, bequest saving and “saving in children”, are contrasted to modern life-cycle saving. Historically, land-owning peasants primarily used bequest saving in combination with retirement contracts. The heir of the farm guaranteed board and lodging for his parents during their remaining lifetime. The growth of a land market in the 19th century reduced the use of retirement contracts. Instead, peasants could dispose of their estates and live off the revenues. Nevertheless, in some regions retirement contracts were still in use in the early 1900’s. Bequest saving was even more long-lived and evidence suggest that peasants did not adopt life-cycle savings until the agricultural sector was definitely dwindling in the first half of the 20th century.

Data on 19 century savings strategies among Swedish workers are scarce. International studies of workers have shown that “saving in children”, where one child continued to live with and provide for the aging parents, was common. A study of probate records from the town of Falun, Sweden, suggests that “saving in children” was the chosen strategy in the 1820’s. Around 1900, however, workers seem to have begun to find life-cycle saving preferable, in contrast to the peasant community. This is likely to have been the result of rapidly growing wages during the late 19th century and of the development of savings banks.

Keywords

saving for old age, 19th and early 20th century, probate inventories, bequest saving, retirement contracts, urban workers, “saving in children” life- cycle saving, growing wages