L'intention ici est d'examiner, à partir des contrats stipulant les conditions de leur retraite de la vie active qu'ont passé des veuves scandinaves, quel était le niveau économique et la qualité de vie dont elles avaient pu bénéficier dans le passé. Etudier ces contrats nous révèle aussi les différents modes de transfert de génération à génération, dans ces pays, du foncier et de l'autorité liée au chef de ménage ainsi que l’évolution de ces modalités dans le temps. Ces contrats rentrèrent plus dans le détail une fois passé le début du 18ème siècle, mais il ne faut pas y voir un signe de tension entre ceux ou celles qui se retiraient et leurs successeurs; il s'agit plutôt d'une stratégie familiale destinée à protéger les intérêts des frères ou sœurs plus jeunes de l'héritier/e, ou encore ceux des parents âgés, surtout dans le cas où la propriété pourrait être acquise par d'autres que des parents. Que ces contrats aient été passés par un couple ou par une veuve, ils garantissaient en général un niveau de vie satisfaisant une fois cessée la vie active. Les veuves se voyaient attribuer une chambre personnelle correctement chauffée, des provisions de bouche plus généreuses que celles dont disposaient nombre de familles, des vêtements, tout en gardant le droit de continuer à travailler, par exemple à traire ou à tisser, mais sans avoir à exécuter des tâches pénibles.

The aim of this article is to explore the economic status and the quality of life of widows in the Nordic past, based on the evidence contained in retirement contracts. Analysis of these contracts also shows the ways in which, and when, land and the authority invested in the headship of the household were transferred between generations in the Nordic countryside. After the early eighteenth century, retirement contracts became more detailed but these should be viewed not as a sign of tension between the retirees and their successors but as a family insurance strategy designed to protect the interests of younger siblings of the heir and his or her old parents, particularly if there was a danger of the property being acquired by a non-relative. Both the retirement contracts made by couples and those made by a widow alone generally guaranteed them an adequate standard of living in retirement. Widows were assured of an adequately heated room of their own, more generous provision of food than was available to many families, clothing and the right to continue to work, for example at spinning and milking, but to be excused heavy labour. However, when the land was to be retained by the family, in many cases there was no intention of establishing a separate household.

This article presents the results of the family reconstitution carried out in three villages in the Spanish province of Navarre, covering a period from the late seventeenth century to 1994. This set of data from over 300 years comprises one of the longest family reconstitution projects in Spain, and means that the present study is based on a major database consisting of over 110,000 entries which can be used to explore various aspects of the demography. In this study I present the evolution of several indicators of fertility, all of which are aspects that can help us to reflect on a phenomenon that has long been known, but which is still not fully understood: the demographic transition. The microfocus of family reconstitution has enabled us to question numerous assumptions about the time when the fall in the birth rate began, the irrational or unconscious nature of reproduction in the pretransitional phase and the strategies employed by couples to have smaller families.

This article charts the vicissitudes of an economic experiment that aimed to eradicate distress in early-nineteenth-century Ireland. The London Committee for Irish Relief was formed in 1822 and was the first large-scale, charitable response in Britain to famine conditions in Ireland. The Committee believed that poverty was the cause rather than the effect of ‘the Irish problem’ and tried to initiate change by providing the poor with financial resources. Despite some initial successes, allegations over misappropriation of funds created a climate of distrust about the Committee's policies. These allegations mounted over the decade, and when Ireland once again faced extreme distress, in 1831, they caused a rift in London's charitable circles, producing two organizations: the Irish Distress Committee, which argued that poverty was the causal factor, and the Western Committee for Irish Relief, which identified Catholicism as the source of Ireland's problems. This division reflected a more general loss of confidence in plans to solve Ireland's endemic poverty through the promotion of economic activity. These events coincided with hardening attitudes towards Catholics and the poor throughout the British Isles and played an important role in the development of policies on Irish relief in the nineteenth century.

This article makes use of linkage of many different sources – official population censuses, wage books, interviews, the correspondence of many canning companies, notarial records, documents from canning unions – in order to investigate labour market segmentation between 1880 and 1960 in the Spanish fish-canning industry, a sector that employed mainly female labour. I explore some social and economic factors that explain why women were placed in the ‘secondary’ segment of the labour market in the fish-canning sector. The study also considers the earning differentials between men and women and the different types of contracts offered to male and female workers.