ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on policies and problems that emerged in the West in particular economic and demographic circumstances and then spread elsewhere. The early history of social security systems and welfare states emphasized new norms for dealing with poverty and setting basic expectations for the human life course, but old age policy evolved into something much more universal. European legislation clustered around the turn of the twentieth century, with emphasis on social insurance and pensions. The last decades of the twentieth century seems to be the full bloom of old age security along with economic and demographic challenges to it. Yet, the welfare state model was important in global debates about aging and the life course. Ninety percent of households were covered by eight pension programs: Employees' Pension (private firms), People's Pension (self-employed, including farmers), Seamen's Pension, National Government Employees' Pension, Local Government Employees' Pension, Public Corporations Employees' Pension, Private Schools Employees' Pension, and Agricultural Corporations Employees' Pension.
