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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.
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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

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