[Industrial work and old age in Wilhelmian Germany]

Starting with Alfred Weber's research, one has considered the age of forty as the decisive turning-point in the careers of nineteenth century industrial workers. Contrary to previous investigations which deduced an impoverishment of these workers in old age from the reduction of the average wages, the present study shows by means of income figures that the financial situation of workers generally did not deteriorate at all after reaching the age of forty. Estimates of the amount of possessions held at different stages of life, which also include workers who left industry early, prove furthermore that even older workers profited more and more from the increase of wages and the extension of places of work. The impoverishment which in early industrial times started at the age of thirty-five did not set in before the age of sixty-five in high industrialization.