Flexible and partial retirement for Norwegian and Swedish workers

Nearly a century and a half before passage of the Social Security Act, Thomas Paine advocated a partial pension. All persons were to receive six pounds annually starting at age 50 ; a full pension of 10 pounds was to be paid annually from the onset of old age, considered by Paine to be 60 years . Paine was not only prophetic in recognizing the economic problem posed by old age in industrial societies. Equally significant was his observation that the decade prior to what was considered the beginning of old age was often one of proliferating workplace problems :