The Geography of Old Age in England and Wales, 1851-1911

历史上对老年的研究通常只关注福利需求。维多利亚时代的同时代人查尔斯·布斯（1840-1916）对19世纪晚期伦敦老年人极端贫困的具体研究，对老年历史研究仍有显著影响（布斯，1894；博耶和施米德尔，2009）。老年人也通过机构护理进行检查，特别是济贫院住宿（liveres, 2009; Ritch, 2014），而老年人人口的亚组尚未得到充分探索。然而，我的博士论文表明，在1851年至1911年期间，贫困并不是老年人的普遍经历。使用英格兰和威尔士五个选定县的转录人口普查数据，我发现贫困取决于人口普查数据集中记录的许多社会经济因素，例如老年人的职业结构，他们的生活安排以及他们根据储蓄，土地和资本自愿退休的能力。我发现，在北部的柴郡和约克郡西部的一些地区，人口普查中被描述为“退休”的男性比例和“靠自己生活”的女性比例都大于领取福利的男性和女性比例。特别是老年男性，在农业工作方面存在地区差异，英格兰北部的人更有可能经营小型“家庭农场”，而在英格兰南部，老年男性通常作为农业劳动者参与。我发现这些差异在贫困化的可能性中起着重要作用，并增加了老年贫困化的南北鸿沟的想法（King, 2000）。此外，贫困是建立在人们一生中经历的事件和环境的基础上的，并且是在接近老年的时候发生的。我的奖学金将使我能够通过有限的额外研究来扩展这些发现，这些研究强调对英格兰和威尔士所有老年人的经历进行检查。必须根据区域和地理特征更广泛地评估老龄问题。通过这种方式，我们完善了布斯以伦敦为中心的对贫困与老年关系的关注。我的研究将通过系统地追踪老年经历的多样性来实现这些目标。一项试点研究将把1891年1月1日从下议院议会文件档案中记录的福利数据与1891年4月5日进行的1891年人口普查中所载的社会经济指标联系起来，所有这些都纳入英格兰和威尔士650个登记区一级。我还将访问档案室，提取有关《新济贫法》相关材料中记录的领取福利的老年人姓名的数据，从而扩展博士对老年人生活史的研究。有了以上我博士的主要发现，我将花时间向更广泛的读者介绍我的研究。正如我将在针对Age UK、英国国际长寿中心和历史与政策的博客和网络研讨会上所论述的那样，自布斯在19世纪末的研究以来，一种将老年与福利依赖和逐渐衰退联系在一起的单一叙事已经被构建起来。随着人口老龄化的增长，以及养老金和现代福利国家的发展，这种说法一直是固定不变的。我的研究另一种选择是使用历史人口普查，以一种在当今话语中无法令人满意地捕捉到的方式揭示老年人的经济生产力。我还将接受培训，学习如何在当地学校发表我的博士论文，通过展示老年人领取福利比例变化的地图，以及如何应用转录的人口普查数据。

The study of old age in history has generally had a narrow focus on welfare needs. Specific studies of the extreme poverty, or pauperism, of older people in late nineteenth-century London by Victorian contemporary Charles Booth (1840-1916) have remained remarkably influential for historical research on old age (Booth, 1894; Boyer and Schmidle, 2009). Old age is also examined through institutional care, particularly workhouse accommodation (Lievers, 2009; Ritch, 2014), while the subgroup of the elderly population that were not poor has been underexplored. However, my PhD thesis shows that pauperism was not a universal experience of old age between 1851 and 1911. Using transcribed census data for five selected counties in England and Wales, I find that pauperism was contingent upon many socio-economic factors recorded in census datasets, such as the occupational structure of older people, their living arrangements and their capacity to voluntarily retire from work based on their savings, land and capital. I find that, in some districts of the northern counties of Cheshire and the Yorkshire West Riding, the proportion of men described in the census as 'retired' and the proportion of women 'living on their own means' was greater than the respective proportions of men and women on welfare. For elderly men in particular, there were regional differences in agrarian work, where those in northern England are more likely to run smallholding 'family farms' whereas, in southern England, elderly men generally participate as agricultural labourers. I find that these differences play an important part in the likelihood of becoming pauperised, and adds to the idea of a north-south divide in old age pauperism (King, 2000). Furthermore, pauperism was predicated on the events and circumstances of people throughout their life histories and approaching their old age. My fellowship will enable me to expand upon these findings through limited additional research that stresses an examination of the experiences of all older people in England and Wales. Old age has to be assessed more widely in relation to regional and geographical characteristics. In this way, we refine Booth's London-centric focus on the relationship between poverty and old age. My fellowship will achieve these objectives by systematically tracing the diversity of old age experiences. A pilot study will link welfare data recorded on 1 January 1891 from the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers archive with the socio-economic indicators contained in the 1891 census conducted on 5 April, all incorporated at the level of c. 650 registration districts in England and Wales. I will also visit record offices to extract data on the names of older people recorded as receiving welfare in materials related to the New Poor Law, thereby expanding on the PhD's examination of the life histories of older people. With the key findings from my PhD presented above, I will spend my time addressing a wider audience on my research. As I will argue in blogs and webinars addressed to Age UK, the International Longevity Centre UK and History and Policy, a monolithic narrative of old age as associated with welfare dependency and gradual decline has been constructed since Booth's research in the late nineteenth century. This narrative has remained fixed through the growth of our ageing population, and the development of both old age pensions and the modern welfare state. My research alternatively uses historical censuses that reveal the economic productivity of older people in a manner that is not satisfactorily captured in present day discourse. I will also receive training on how to address my PhD to local schools, through the presentation of maps that present variations in the proportions of older people receiving welfare, and in the application of transcribed census data.