How Retirement Was Invented

退休制度之诞生

 

By Sarah Laskow

文/莎拉·拉斯科夫

 

The earliest schemes for financial support in old age were pegged[1] to life expectancy.

 

对老年人的财政支持制度最早与预期寿命挂钩。

 

[1] peg使工资、价格等固定于某水平（或与……挂钩）。

 

In 1881 Otto von Bismarck[2], the conservative minister president of Prussia, presented a radical idea to the Reichstag[3]: government-run financial support for older members of society. In other words, retirement. The idea was radical because back then, people simply did not retire. If you were alive, you worked – probably on a farm – or, if you were wealthier, managed a farm or larger estate.

 

1881年，时任普鲁士首相的保守派奥托·冯·俾斯麦向德意志帝国议会提议，由政府出资对老年人提供财政支持，即建立退休制度。这是一个全新的理念，因为当时根本没有退休一说。活着，就要工作——一般人很可能是干农活儿——家境富裕的人，就是管理农场或大庄园。

 

[2] 德意志帝国首任首相（1871—1890），人称“铁血首相”（德语：Eiserner Kanzler；“铁”指武器，“血”指战争）、“德国的建筑师”及“德国的领航员”。

 

[3] Reichstag德意志帝国议会。

 

But von Bismarck was under pressure, from socialist opponents, to do better by the people in his country, and so he argued to the Reichstag that “those who are disabled from work by age and invalidity have a well-grounded claim to care from the state.” It would take eight years, but by the end of the decade, the German government would create a retirement system, which provided for citizens over the age of 70 – if they lived that long.

 

反对派社会党人向俾斯麦施压，敦促其让本国国民生活更好，因而他在德意志帝国议会上主张，称“年老伤残无法工作者有充分理由享受国家的照顾”。原本计划用八年推行，但直到第十年末，德国政府才设立了退休制度，仅面向70岁以上的公民——只要能活到这个岁数，就可以退休。

 

This was a big “if,” at the time. That retirement age just about aligned with life expectancy in Germany then. Even with retirement, most people still worked until they died.

 

然而，这是一个大大的假设，因为70岁差不多就是当时德国人的预期寿命。即便有了退休制度，大多数人还是工作到生命终点。

 

There were exceptions though. Military pensions had long been given to soldiers who had risked their lives (though those pensions didn’t necessarily mean they could stop working altogether). In the United States, starting in the mid-1800s, certain municipal employees – firefighters, cops, teachers, mostly in big cities – started receiving public pensions, too, and in 1875, the American Express Company started offering private pensions. By the 1920s, a variety of American industries, from railroads to oil to banking, were promising their workers some sort of support for their later years.

 

当然也有例外。从很早以前开始，曾冒生命危险保家卫国的军人可领取军人退休金（不过领退休金不代表他们完全不用工作）。19世纪中叶起，部分美国市政雇员，如消防员、警察、教师也开始领取公共养老金，不过主要限于大城市。1875年，美国运通公司开始为其员工提供企业养老金。20世纪20年代，铁路、石油、银行等美国各大行业均承诺为员工在晚年提供一定的资助。

 

Most of these pension programs pegged the retirement age to 65. This mark had less to do with health and more with economics – workers could keep on trucking[4] for years, and “old age” didn’t necessarily mean bad health. (There was some research, however, that documented a decline in mental capabilities starting around age 60. Conventional wisdom held, too, that by 60 a man had certainly done his best work and should give way to the next generation.) When the federal government started creating what would become social security, some of the policies suggested would have had workers off the clock at 60, or even earlier. The economics of that didn’t quite work, though, and so when the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, the official retirement age was 65. Life expectancy for American men was around 58 at the time.

 

这些养老金制度大多都将退休年龄设定在了65岁。这一数字和身体健康程度不再有太大关系，而更多和经济挂钩——年纪大的工人再干几年没问题，“年老”也并不意味着身体不好。（然而一些研究表明，人的智力大概到60岁便开始退化。传统观念也认为人到60，该功成身退、让位给下一代了。）后来联邦政府开始建立社会保障体系，有人提议将退休年龄设定为60岁甚至更早。不过这一提议没有经济学意义，1935年通过的《社会保障法》中，正式退休年龄仍为65岁。当时美国男性的预期寿命约为58岁。

 

[4] truck〈非正式〉缓慢前进。

 

Almost immediately after that, though, that balance changed. The Depression ended, and wealth and better medicine meant that in the post-war boom, Americans started to live longer. By 1960, life expectancy in America was almost 70 years. All of a sudden more people were living past the age where they had permission to stop working and the money to do it. Finally, they began to retire in large numbers – to stop working, to embrace leisure, to golf. For a few decades, older Americans lived without working, enough that we’ve come to expect that we should be able to retire, even if that may no longer be financially possible for many. Today, the Social Security Administration estimates that there are 38 million retired people in the United States alone.

 

没过多久，这种平衡便被打破。大萧条结束后，战后繁荣时期社会越发富裕，医疗得到改善，美国人平均寿命开始提高，20世纪60年代，美国人预期寿命近70岁。转眼间，更多人活过了退休年龄，不仅可以不工作，经济上也有保障。最终，越来越多的人退休——不用工作，享受闲暇，打打高尔夫。接下来数十年，美国老年人都过着悠哉的退休生活，让人觉得到一定年龄就退休是天经地义的，即便对很多人来说不再有那个经济基础。今天，美国社会保障管理局估计仅美国就有3800万退休人员。

 

（译者单位：中南大学）