Saving the best for last? Old age retirement among the Urban middle classes in Leiden and Regensburg (c. 1650- c. 1800)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12447397 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ludwig Pelzl (European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy), Jaco Zuijderduijn (0000-0002-1296-008X, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 326-349 |
| Publication date | 2022-03-29 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The History of the Family (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1081-602X • E-ISSN: 1873-5398 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1081602x.2022.2055610 |
| OpenAlex | W4221128685 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 18 |
In pre-industrial Europe, many thousands of ‘middle-class’ individuals retired by purchasing a corrody: a contract allowing them life-long food and lodging, usually by spending their remaining years in a hospital. Given that people usually struggle to prepare for the later stages of life, this article asks whether corrodies were priced in line with the market. We study institutions that specialized in commercial retirement in two distinct areas: the Dutch Republic, where middle-class living standards were high in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and Bavaria, where purchasing power was lower. In the Bavarian city of Regensburg, the local hospital sold subsidized corrodies, probably to accommodate social middling groups with limited scope for saving but with a strong desire to continue to set themselves apart during old age from groups with a lower social status. In Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, it was more expensive to maintain that distinction because even lower social groups had the opportunity to save. As a result, here corrody prices were higher and more in line with the market price
Business · Demographic economics · Economics · Economy · Enlightenment · Labour economics · Market economy · Middle class · Operations management · Purchasing · Purchasing power · Social class · Subsidy · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes
The Middling Sort
Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 1500-1700
Lonely last days? Social networks and formal care at the deathbed of urban elderly in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent, 1797
Living in the demos
Kein stat findt man der gelich“. Zur vergleichenden mittelalterlichen Spital- und Stadtgeschichte
Food, Energy and the Creation of Industriousness
The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War
Valuing medieval annuities
The Search for the ‘Middle Sort of People’ in England, 1600–1800
The timing and pattern of real wage divergence in pre‐industrial Europe
Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925
Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek
Beyond the male breadwinner
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |