TY - JOUR
T1 - Saving the best for last?
T2 - Old age retirement among the Urban middle classes in Leiden and Regensburg (c. 1650- c. 1800)
AU - Zuijderduijn, Jaco
AU - Pelzl, Ludwig
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Eldercare
KW - financial history
KW - social history
KW - early-modern history
U2 - 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2055610
DO - 10.1080/1081602X.2022.2055610
M3 - Article
SN - 1081-602X
VL - 27
SP - 326
EP - 349
JO - The History of the Family
JF - The History of the Family
IS - 2
ER -