When your working days were over: Louvain 1796

What did the elderly do before the birth of the welfare state? Did they spend their remaining years living in poverty? Could they rely on savings? Or did they continue as long as possible as professionals? A survey taken in Louvain in 1796 allows for a look at the relation between age and occupation at the end of the Ancien régime. Eleven individuals listed were 90 years and older: two of them, M. Peeters and the widow Vandebosch, both 95, had apparently moved back in with relatives: they were reported as ‘mothers’ living with a household head. C. Schipers was ill and lived in a hospital, but another sick person, M. Dozo, femme malade, continued to live at home, as did the other near-centenarians. The widow Smolders and A. Pierson were labelled pauvre femme, and J.B. Verhulst pauvre homme. Much better off was the widow Verhulst, a 94-year-old rentier who could live off her savings. T. Luyckx was reported as a servant, who apparently continued to work in some capacity at the honorable age of 95. Finally, and quite appropriate for university-town Louvain, 95-year-old J. Ezelinckx was listed as a doctor in law.

In 1796 these eleven had already spent many decades as elderly individuals. They had outlived their loved ones, who had probably passed away years before. In fact, in total the group of elderly in Louvain was quite sizeable: in 1796 the town’s population was 20.167 – 4.862 children below 12, who were only mentioned in the survey if there were exceptional circumstances, such as orphans, school-going, in-living, and 15.305 adults aged 12 and above. The proportion of the population over 49 was 18,4%, over 54 it was 13,2%, and over 59 it was 9,9%. Here, we will focus on the elderly. The table below provides further information the survey gives on the 2.648 inhabitants aged over 54. Most of them were identified as professionals (1.156, or 43.7%), followed by a group identified as a family member (living with a household head: 748, or 28.2%). The third-largest group consisted of religious men and women (246, or 9.3%).

In the survey the largest part of the elderly were thus identified as – or identified themselves as – professionals: as bakers, labourers, lawyers and many, many more professions. Although they continued to do so up until a high age, the general trend was for household heads to gradually no longer being identified with a profession. The figure below shows how the share of professionals in every age category gradually declined after the age of c. 50, when a maximum of 59% of the adult population reported an occupation; by 60 this was 50%, and by 70 this was 40%.

What did become of the professionals during the ageing process? The figure below gives the various means of existence for household heads. A few things stand out: first, the share of professionals declines but remains above half until the final age cohort 90-99, which suggests that many elderly people continued to practise a profession until a high age – in all likelihood with the problems that came with working up to a high age, such as reduced labour input or declining productivity. Second, in the categories poor and sick there is an increase – which was to be expected – but the share of these does not exceed one in five until the age cohort 90-99. In fact many elderly continued to rely on a means of existence other than poor relief until a relatively high age. They did so by means of becoming rentiers, which is a third thing that stands out in the figure: living off capital as rentiers, but also as landlords[1], was an important means of existence, in particular in the age cohorts 70-79 (20% of all means of existence of household heads) and 80-89 (28%). The latter observation should warn us not to suppose that reduced labour input immediately led to dependence (on poor relief institutions or family members). When faced with a decreasing ability to work, and a subsequent decline in income, a substantial proportion of the population turned to their capital: as rentiers they could live off savings made during their working days, or money acquired in another way such as inheritance. As landlords they could make best use of their residence by renting out a room to one of the many students in Louvain (in 1796 there were about 150 of these).

Finally: what about those mentioned in the survey that were not household heads? In theory it would be possible that many elderly stopped living independently, and moved in with next of kin. Fortunately, the survey indicates the age composure of household members as well: the wives, sons and daughters and other relatives resorting under a household head. These data give little reason to believe many elderly moved in with relatives though: the share of individuals mentioned as family members is high in the age cohort 20-29 (46%) and then gradually drops to 25% (age cohort 70-79). After this there is a small increase to 27% in the 90-99 age cohort (although we should point out that the number of observations in this cohort is small, and probably yields a distorted image). Louvain in 1796 thus seems to show a typical urban pattern of neolocality, with children moving out of the parental household in their twenties or thirties, and most parents continuing living in nuclear households until their deaths.

The eleven inhabitants that lived to become ninety fit quite nicely in the more general pattern: ageing of course came with increasing dependence on urban institutions and family members, but maintaining one’s own household, living off savings and when possible continuing working up to high age, were also not at all unusual.

[1] The original source has the category ‘locataire’, literally meaning tenant. This is a strange category, as it does not express an occupation (or: means of existence) but rather a residential category. Likely, what was meant was not tenant, but landlord, which was an occupation: the 18th-century composer(s) of the source simply made an error translating verhuurder (landlord) to French, ending up with the French word for tenant.