The questions raised by this paper include the following: Did working-class American families around the turn of the twentieth century save more for precautionary purposes, to finance retirement or to provide for unforeseen circumstances such as unemployment, illnesses, or accidents before the advent of social insurance? Or have American workers always been low savers, culturally or economically deaf to the virtues of thrift, or reliant perhaps on informal social safety nets provided locally through churches, friends or family members? Or, perhaps, differences in other relevant factors, such as old-age life expectancy and age at retirement, were sufficient to offset private saving needed in the absence of social insurance?
Download Info
To our knowledge, this item is not available for
download. To find whether it is available, there are three
options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page
whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be
available.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Houston - Department of Economics in its series Papers with number
98-06.