TY  - JOUR
AU  - Carter,Susan B.
AU  - Sutch,Richard
TI  - Myth of the Industrial Scrap Heap: A Revisionist View of Turn-of-the-   Century American Retirement
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Historical Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 73
PY  - 1995
Y2  - October 1995
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0073
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0073.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Richard C. Sutch
136 Purdue Avenue
Kensington
Berkeley, CA 94708
Tel: 951-452-7090
E-Mail: richard.sutch@ucr.edu
AB  - Using the census survival method to calculate net flows across employment states between 1900 and 1910, we find that approximately one-fifth of all men who reached the age of 55 eventually retired before their death.  Many of these retirees appear to have planned their withdrawal from paid employment by accumulating assets, becoming self-employed, and then liquidating their assets to provide a stream of income to finance consumption in old age.  This `modern' retirement behavior, we argue, has important implications for the economic history of capital and labor markets, of saving and investment, of insurance and pensions, and of the family economy.
ER  -