Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T08:12:56.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Poverty of Impoverishment Theory: The Economic Well-Being of the Elderly, 1890–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Brian Gratton
Brian Gratton
Affiliation:
Professor of History at Arizona State University, Box 872501, Tempe, AZ 85287-2501.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Progressive Ear and New Deal reformers claimed that industrialization impoverished the elderly by degrading older workers. This has become the standard interpretation in popular and scholarly accounts. Data from 1890 through 1950 show that real wages of older workers rose sharply during this peroid and that family economic strategies promised the elderly considerable security. Birth cohort analysis indicates positive age-earnings profiles across the life cycle. Although the elderly benefited from economic growth, security in old age often demanded intrafamilial exchanges. Tensions arising from these transfers may explain the broad popular support Social Security received.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 39 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amenta, Edwin, Carruthers, Bruce G., and Zylan, Yvonne. “A Hero for the Aged? The Townsend Movement, the Political Mediation Model, and U.S. Old-Age Policy, 1934–1950.” American Journal of Sociology 98, no.2 (1992): 308–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ball, Robert M. “The Original Understanding on Social Security: Implications for Later Developments.” In Social Security: Beyond the Rhetoric of Crisis, edited by Theodore, Marmor R. and Mashaw, Jerry L., 17–39. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Barkin, Solomon. The Older Worker in Industry: A Study of New York State Manufacturing Industries. Albany: State of New York, 1933.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S.A Treatise on the Family. Enl. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binstock, Robert. “The Aged as Scapegoat.” The Gerontologist 23, no. 2 (1983): 136–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bodnar, John E.. Workers’ World: Kinship, Community, and Protest in an Industrial Society,1900–1940. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bodnar, John E.The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America. Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Burns, , MacGregor, James. Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 1882–1940. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1956.Google Scholar
Committee on Economic Security. The Need for Economic Security in the U.S. Washington, DC:GPO, 1934.Google Scholar
Burns, James MacGregor. The Report of the Committee on Economic Security of 1935. 50th Anniversary Ed. Washington, DC: National Conference on Social Welfare, 1985.Google Scholar
Craig, Lee A.To Sow One Acre More: Childbearing and Farm Productivity in the Antebellum North. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Derthick, Martha. Policymaking for Social Security. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1979.Google Scholar
de Vries, Jan. “The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution.” this JOURNAL 54, no.2 (1994): 249–70.Google Scholar
Dreiser, Theodore. Jennie Gerhardt. Edited by James, L. W. West III. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Economic Insecurity in Old Age: Social and Economic Factors Contributing to Old-Age Dependency. Washington, DC: U.S. Social Security Board,1937.Google Scholar
Eliot, Thomas D., ed. American Standards and Planes of Living. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Abraham. Facing Old Age. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1922.Google Scholar
Epstein, Abraham. The Challenge of the Aged. New York:Vanguard Press,1928.Google Scholar
Ermisch, John. “ Familia Oeconomica: A Survey of the Economics of the Family.” Scottish Journal of Political Economy 40, no. 4 (1993): 353–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, I. S. Collection. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Hyde Park, NY.Google Scholar
Fischer, David Hackett. Growing Old in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Folbre, Nancy, ed. Who Pays for the Kids? Gender and the Structures of Constraint. London: Routledge, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin, Claudia. “Family Strategies and the Family Economy in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Role of Secondary Workers.” In Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family, and Group Experience in the Nineteenth Century, edited by Theodore, Hershberg, 277–310. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Gordon, Linda. “The New Feminist Scholarship on the Welfare State.” InWomen, the State, and Welfare, edited by Linda, Gordon, 9–35. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Gould, E. R. L. “The Social Condition of Labor. ” In Labor, Slavery and Self-Government, edited by Adams, H. B., Vol. 9, 8–42. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1893.Google Scholar
Graebner, William. A History of Retirement: The Meaning and Function of an American Institution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Granda, Peter. “Count We Must: The Cost of Living Surveys, 1888–1936.” Paper presented at the First Conference on the Family /Household Behavior—Consumption and Production Perspectives, University of California, Irvine, CA, 1991.Google Scholar
Gratton, Brian. “The New Welfare State: Social Security and Retirement in 1950.” Social Science History 12, no.2 (1988): 171–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gratton, Brian. “The Creation of Retirement: Families, Individuals and the Social Security Movement.” In Societal Impact on Aging: Historical Perspectives, edited by Schaie, K. Warner and Achenbaum, W. Andrew, 45–73. New York: Springer, 1993.Google Scholar
Gratton, Brian. The Politics of Dependency Estimates: Social Security Board Statistics, 1935–1939. Unpublished Paper.Google Scholar
Gratton, Brian, and Rotondo, Frances. “Industrialization, the Family Economy, and the Economic Status of the American Elderly.” Social Science History 15, no.3 (1991): 337–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haber, Carole, and Gratton, Brian. Old Age and the Search for Security: An American Social History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Haines, Michale R. “Industrial Work and the Family Lifecyle, 1889–1890.” Research in Economic History 4 (1979); 289–356.Google Scholar
Haines, Michael R.. “The Life Cycle, Savings, and Demographic Adaptation: Some Historical Evidence for the United States and Europe.” In Gender and the Life Course, edited by Rossi, A. S., 43–63. New York: Aldine Publishing, 1985.Google Scholar
Hunnicutt, Benjamin Kline. Work Without End: Abandoning Shorter Hours for the Right to Work. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Hurd, Michael D.. “The Economic Status of the Elderly.” Science, 244, no. 4905 (1989): 659–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).Cost of Living in the United States, 1917–19. Machine-readable data file. ICPSR no. 8299. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR, 1986.Google Scholar
Hurd, Michael D.. Cost of Living of Industrial Workers in the United States and Europe, 1888–1890. Machine-readable data file. ICPSR no. 7711. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR, 1986.Google Scholar
Ito, Rodney II, Wycoff, Joseph, and Gratton, Brian. “Using the 1940 and 1950 Public Use Micro-Data Samples: A Cautionary Tale.” Historical Methods Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Licht, Walter. Getting Work: Philadelphia, 1840–1950. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Massachusetts Commission on Pensions.Google Scholar
Report on Old-Age Pensions. Boston: Massachusetts Commission on Pensions, 1925.Google Scholar
Merriam, Ida C. Papers. Gelman Library. Special Collections Department. The George Washington University. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Moen, Jon. “The Labor of Older Men: A Comment.” this JOURNAL 47, no. 3 (1987): 761–67.Google Scholar
Moen, Jon. “The Unemployment and Retirement of Older Men: Further Evidence from the 1900 and 1910 Censuses.” History Methods 27, no. 1 (1994): 40–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morawska, Ewa. For Bread with Butter: The Life-World of East Central Europeans in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1900–1940. Cambridge: Combridge University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
National Civic Federation. Extent of Old Age Dependency. New York: National Civic Federation, 1928.Google Scholar
National Resources Committee. Consumer Incomes in the United States: Their Distribution in 1935. Washington, DC: GPO, 1938.Google Scholar
New York State Archives and Record Administration (NYSA). Albany, NY.Google Scholar
Owen, John. Working Lives: The American Work Force since 1920. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1986.Google Scholar
Parsons, Donald O., and Goldin, Claudia. “Parental Altruism and Self-Interest: Child Labor among Late Nineteenth-Century American Families.” Economic Inquiry 27, no. 4 (1989): 637–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, James T.America’s Struggle Against Poverty: 1900–1985. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Presidential Papers Collection. Hoover Library. West Branch, IA.Google Scholar
Quadagno, Jill. “Theories of the Welfare State.” Annual Reviews of Sociology 13 (1987): 109–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard. “The Labor of Older Americans: Retirement of Men On and Off the Job, 1870–1937.” this JOURNAL 46, no.1 (1986): 1–30.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger L.. “ The Trend in the Rate of Labor Force Participation of Older Men, 1870–1930.” this JOURNAL 49, no. 1 (1989): 170–83.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger L.. “ Retirement: Past and Present.” Paper Presented at the Conference on Retirement, Social Security and the Future, Washington, DC, 1990.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roge L., Sutch, Richard, and Williamson, Samuel H..“Inventing Pensions: The Origins of the Company-Provided Pension in the United States, 1900–1940.” In Societal Impact on Aging: Historical Perspectives, edited by Schaie, K. Warner and Achenbaum, W. Andrew, 1–38. New York: Springer, 1993.Google Scholar
Riley, Matilda White. “Aging and Cohort Succession: Interpretations and Misinterpretation.” Public Opinion Quarterly 37, no. 1 (1973): 35–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roosevelt, Franklin D. Papers. Roosevelt Library. Hyde Park, NY.Google Scholar
Rothbart, R. “ ‘Homes are What any Strike is About’: Immigrant Labor and the Family Wage.” Journal of Social Histoty 23, no. 2 (1989): 267–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell Sage Foundation Collection. Rockefeller Archive Center. North Tarrytown, NY.Google Scholar
Ryder, Norman B.. “The Cohort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change.” American Sociological Review 30, no. 6 (1965): 843–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, Barkev S.. “Children and Income in Urban Single-Family Households.” Social Security Bulletin 2, no. 11 (1939): 3–10.Google Scholar
Sanders, Barkev S., and Kantor, Anne G.. “Income, Children, and Gainful Workers in Urban Single-Family Households. ” Social Security Bulletin 3, no. 2 (1940): 21–30.Google Scholar
Schiltz, Michael E.Public Attitudes Toward Social Security, 1935–1965. United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Social Security Administration, Research Report no. 33. Washington, DC: GPO, 1970.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. The Politics of Upheaval. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda, and Ikenberry, John. “The Political Formation of the American Welfare State in Historical and Comparative Perspective.” Comparative Social Research 6 (1983): 87–148.Google Scholar
Social Security Board (SSB). Records. Washington National Records Center. Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Stern, Mark. Society and Family Strategy. Erie County, New York; 1850–1920. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Tilly, Louise A., and Scott, Joan W.. Women, Work, and Family. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Pt. 1. Washington, DC: GPO, 1975.Google Scholar
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Cost of Living in the United States. Bulletin No. 357. Washington, DC: GPO, 1924.Google Scholar
Tilly, Louise. A.Family Expenditures in Selected Cities. Vol. 8. Changes in Assets and Liabilities. Bulletin No. 648. Washington, DC: GPO, 1941.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. Fourteenth Census of the United States. Vol. 3. Population: 1920. Washington, DC: GPO, 1922.Google Scholar
Tilly, Louise A.Abstract of the Fourteenth Census of the United States: 1920. Washington, DC: GPO, 1923.Google Scholar
Tilly, Louise A.Census of Population, 1940: Public Use Microdata Sample. Machine-readable data file. ICPSR no. 8236. Prepared by the Bureau of the Census. Washington, DC: Bureau, 1983.Google Scholar
Tilly, Louise A.Census of Population, 1950: Public Use Microdata Sample. Machine-readable data file. ICPSR no. 8251. Prepared by the Bureau of the Census. Washington, DC: The Bureau, 1984.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of the Interior, Census Office. Abstract of the Eleventh Census: 1890. Washington, DC: GPO, 1894.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics et al. (BLS et al.). Study of Consumer Purchases in the United States, 1935–1936. Machine-readable data file. ICPSR no. 8908. Ann Arbor, MI: ICPSR, 1991.Google Scholar
Ware, Caroline F.Greenwich Village, 1920–1930. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935.Google Scholar
Weaver, Carolyn L.The Crisis in Social Security: Economic and Political Origins. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Weaver, Carolyn L.. “On the Lack of a Political Market for Compulsory Old Age Insurance Prior to the Great Depression: Insights from Economic Theories of Government.” Explorations in Economic History 20, no. 3 (1983): 294–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar