The institution of retirement on Scanian estates in the nineteenth century.

This article examines the institution of retirement on some estates in Scania, the southernmost part of Sweden, in the nineteenth century. It is obvious that tenant farmers on the estates were practising the same retirement system as was customary among freeholders, that is they were entering into retirement contracts with their offspring or with a non-relative, making over the farm in exchange for board and lodging for the rest of their lives. The retirement age was about 60 for men and somewhat less for women. In this respect there was no difference between tenant farmers and freeholders. However, due to differences in property conditions and land tenure, there were other differences between these groups. Freeholders were usually able to ensure for themselves considerably better pension rights than could estate tenants. Furthermore, there are clear indications that estate owners, in certain cases, opposed early retirement or intervened in the selection of new tenant farmers as well as in the level of the pension. Possibly as a result, it was more common among estate tenants to agree a retirement contract with a non-relative than it was among freeholders. A turning point in the history of Swedish pension systems was the introduction of general old-age pensions in 1913, when, for the first time, the state assumed overall responsibility for the elderly. Even if the pension, to begin with, was low, it was one and the same pension system for all the elderly, independent of previous occupation or the social group to which they belonged. Previously, responsibility for the elderly was shouldered by families, or, if these were unable to support and take care of their elderly, it fell to the municipalities. It thus follows that the various social groups organized the support and care of their elderly in different ways according to their respective means. * Both of the Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden. Continuity and Change 17 (3), 2002, 373–403. f 2002 Cambridge University Press DOI: 10.1017/S0268416002004393 Printed in the United Kingdom