ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a longrun explanation of retirement in England and Wales since 1881. It deals with men than with women, and with manual rather than white-collar workers; aims to makes use of data from the decennial censuses of England and Wales to trace longrun changes in participation rates, and evaluates alternative explanations of these trends. The chapter outlines the modern hypotheses about the causes of retirement, analyses the census data and utilizes the explanatory hypotheses to interpret the historical trends. The array of potential non-income influences on retirement is very broad and the overall effect indeterminate. Increases in life expectancy over the twentieth century and possibly better health in old age may have increased labour supply at older ages, but parallel changes in the nature of work and the structure of the labour market may have reduced the demand for older workers.
