THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COLLECTIVE OCCUPATIONAL PENSIONS IN BUSINESS IN SCANDINAVIA, CA. 1900–1930

Abstract

The first three decades of the 20th century marked the beginning of modern collective occupational pensions for salaried business employees in the three Scandinavian countries. Pension premiums were derived from actuarial principles and pension entitlement was financially and legally secured. Relatively few salaried business employees were covered by these new occupational pension schemes until the 1930s. There were similar developments as well as different outcomes in the three countries. In their first three decades, the relative success of such schemes, and the participation of salaried employees in them, seems to have been largest in Denmark and lowest – as well as starting latest – in Norway. The development of occupational pensions in business is compared with Britain and Switzerland as well as with occupational pensions for public employees in the Scandinavian countries; the latter clearly functioning as a model. The new principles for occupational pensions in business, established during and after World War I, proved long lasting and increasingly important. In Norway, defined benefit pension schemes that started in business during World War I were not replaced by defined contribution pension schemes until after 2000.

Keywords:

• occupational pensions
• pension entitlements
• salaried employees

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. In Denmark and Norway, the concept of ‘funksjonær’ was well-adopted at the time, here translated as ‘salaried employee’. In Sweden, ‘tjenesteman’, ‘civil servant’, or ‘official’ was the concept most frequently used at the time. The umbrella organization of the salaried employees’ unions, established in 1944, was thus named Tjänstemännens centralorganisation (TCO).

2. See Harrysson, Arbetsgivare och, 54; Vogt, Aktieselskapet Oslo, 93–6.

3. In Norway, there is only one other comprehensive account of a company-based pension insurance fund established before 1930: Grinde, Trygghet for.

4. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 19; Harrysson, Arbetsgivare och, 9.

5. Clark, Munnell, and Orszag, Oxford Handbook, 79–81,

6. The following is based on Hannah, Inventing Retirement, 9–29.

7. Leimgruber, Solidarity without the State, 44–7.

8. Norwegian Parliamentary Records, St.med.nr.2.1930. Bilag 2, 11, 25, 31.

9. Leimburger, Solidarity without the State, citation 47.

10. Leimburger, Solidarity without the State, 64–82, citation 70.

11. SPP, originally being a support association (understödsförening), changed its name and organizational form when it united with Pensionsanstalten Sverige in 1929 to become the mutual Svenska Personal-Pensionskassan. But it continued to use the same abbreviation, SPP, which is used in this paper.

12. Åmark, Hundra år; Seip, Veiene til, 219–20; Kuhnle and Sander, The Emergence of; Petersen, Petersen, and Christiansen, Dansk velfærdshistorie I; Feldbæk, Løkke, and Jeppesen, Drømmen om; Espeli and Bergh, Tiden går, 176–8; Petersen and Åmark, Old Age.

13. Harrysson, Arbetsgivare och; Solinger, Sjuk- och; Molin, Tjänstepensionsfrågan; Wetterberg, Medelklassens guldägg; Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942; Harrysson and Edebalk, Employers.

14. Particularly important was the Act of 1912 regarding support associations. However, comprehensive statistics on occupational pensions are not available until about 1960: Harrysson, Arbetsgivare och, 7, 49. General insurance legislation was enacted in Sweden in 1903, in Denmark in 1914, and in Norway in 1911. In the last two countries, company-based pension funds were excluded. Denmark enacted a law on surveillance of such pension funds in 1935. In Norway, tax legislation from the 1920s demanded that the deduction of pension premiums be dependent on governmental approval of the by-laws of such pension funds: Grinde, Trygghet for alle, 45–8. The first statistical overview of private occupational pensions is Fretheim, Innstilling fra, 6.

15. Sjöblom, Trygghet som, 253–74.

16. Ibid. 282–301; Bergander, Försäkringsväsendet i Sverige, 353–5.

17. Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 9 ff.

18. Harrysson, Arbetsgivare och, 70, 88–9; Vigen, De nordiske, 142–3.

19. Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 9 ff. quotation 37.

20. Hennock, The Origin, 278–89. The scheme was implemented through the Reichsversicherungsanstalt für Angestelten, see also Thorsen, Den kollektive, 123.

21. The only definition of ‘salaried employees’ given in Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 76, is ‘civil servants [‘tjenestemen’], foremen and others in similar positions’.

22. Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942., 49–63, 312; Erikson, Ung gammal, 90; Wetterberg, Medelklassens guldägg, 24 ff.

23. Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 60–2, 312; Harrysson, Arbetsgivare och, 18–25, 85 ff.

24. Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 81–5.

25. Harrysson, Arbetsgivare och, 71–2.

26. Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 86–94; Wetterberg, Medelklassens guldägg, 43–5.

27. Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 312.

28. Berge, The ‘People’s, 269–71; Berge, Pensions-separatism, 11–13.

29. Norwegian Parliamentary Records, St.med.nr.2.1930. Bilag 7–9, 12–15, 29–30, 33–4.

30. Berge, Pensions-separatism, 13–27.

31. Hagen, Pension principles, 33–4; Berge, Pensions-separatism, 28–38.

32. Norwegian Parliamentary Records, St.med.nr.2.1930. Bilag 9, 15–17, 30, 42–3.

33. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 16, 31, 46.

34. Ibid., 44; Jensen, Madsen, and Due, Arbejdsgiverorganisering i, 95–7.

35. Lytting, Privatfunktionærernes, 84. Lytting was head of office in DA then.

36. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 22–3, 103–4, cf. Lytting, Privatfunktionærernes, 116.

37. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 69–70 (citation), Petersen, Petersen, and Christiansen, Dansk velfærdshistorie II, 47.

38. Hennock, The Origin, 281–2.

39. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 24–56, citation 19.

40. Ibid., 71–81.

41. Ibid., 88–97.

42. Ibid., 101–16, 132–3; Maegaard and Vestberg, Dansk Dampskibsrederiforening, 145, 189.

43. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 117–20.

44. Johansen, Velfærdsstaten i tal, 17–37. Petersen, Petersen, and Christiansen, Dansk velfærdshistorie II, 235–95. The latter’s extensive analysis of parliamentary decision-making does not go into the discussions on, and details of, the conditions for reducing state pensions due to other forms of income, including occupational pensions.

45. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 136–8; Petersen and Åmark, Old Age, 158–9.

46. Thorsen, Den kollektive, 148, 154, 166.

47. Ibid., 179–84.

48. Petersen and Arnholm, Frydenlunds bryggeri, 191–4, cf. Ibsen, Mellom profitt, 164–6.

49. Espeli, Pensjonsløftet, 70–6.

50. Bergh, Jernbanen i., 143 ff.; Espeli, Pensjonsløftet, 63–9.

51. Espeli, Pensjonsløftet, 114–16.

52. Seip, Sosialhjelpstaten, 257–80; Seip, Veiene til, 146 ff.; Espeli, Pensjonsløftet, 94–6, 119–22.

53. Hoffstad, Kontorfunksjonærernes Forening; Sæland, White-Collar, 226–7.

54. Norges Arbeidslederforbund, Norges Arbeidslederforbund, 28–32, 77–103; Hverven, Norsk arbeidslederforbund, 108–10.

55. Espeli, Pensjonsløftet, 136–40 with references; Grinde, Trygghet for.

56. Meddelelser fra Norsk Arbeidsgiverforening (Information from the Norwegian Confederation of Employers, herafter MfNAF) 1915, 419, [ibid.], 1917, 233–5, 387.

57. MfNAF 1917, 235–6, 1918, 174.

58. MfNAF 1917, 234.

59. Kjeldstadli, Jerntid, 227.

60. MfNAF 1917, 236. See also Farmand 1917, 723.

61. MfNAF 1917, 387.

62. Bjørnson and Haavet, Langsomt ble, 72 ff.

63. MfNAF 1918, 171–80; Bjørnsen, Haugen, and Knudsen, Forsikringsrådet, 42–4; Espeli and Bergh, Tiden går, 145 ff.

64. Norsk Forsikring, edited by Sverre Gregersen, 1921, 7–8; Monrad, Erindringer, 56–7; MfNAF 1921, 106.

65. Christensen et al., Norske Folk, 78–80.

66. Monrad, Erindringer, 5–10, 54–5; Forssmann and Fischerström, SPP 1917-1942, 50.

67. Monrad, Erindringer, 56 ff.

68. Monrad, Erindringer, 59–60; Petersen, Norsk arbeidsgiverforening, 638.

69. Monrad, Erindringer, 57; MfNAF 1921, 106, 180–1; Vogt, Aktieselskapet Oslo, 88–96.

70. Espeli and Bergh, Tiden går, 176–8.

71. Monrad, Erindringer, 68–70, 79–89.

72. Hannah, Inventing Retirement, 21.

73. Schreiner, Norsk skipsfart; Hartmark, Norsk Skibsførerforbund, 267–75.

74. Petersen, Norsk arbeidsgiverforening, 70 ff.; Farmand 1912, 692.

75. Cf. MfNAF 1917–1920.

76. Shalev, The Privatization, 175.

77. Espeli, Pensjonsløftet, 324.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Harald Espeli

Harald Espeli (b. 1955) is a senior researcher at BI Norwegian Business School. He has written a number of commissioned works, including the second volume of the history of Norwegian telecommunications between 1920 and 1970 (2005). In recent years he has been writing the history of the Office of the Auditor General of Norway (2016) and the company history of the insurance mutual Gjensidige (2016). He has published extensively on Norway’s economic and political history in the 20th century, including topics such as parliamentary lobbying, agricultural history and protectionism, and taxation issues, as well as economic, legal, and political aspects of World War II. The latter topic includes ‘The German Occupation and its Consequences on the Composition and Changes of Norwegian Business Elites’, in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 2010/2: 107–30; and ‘Economic Consequences of the German Occupation of Norway, 1940–1945’, in Scandinavian Journal of History, 2013/4: 502–24. Competition policy and various forms of cartelization in Norwegian business has been a long-term interest since his doctoral dissertation (1991). Parts of his research have been summarized in ‘Perspectives on the Distinctiveness of Norwegian Price and Competition Policy in XX^th Century’, in The Journal of European Economic History, 2002 (31), 3: 621–60.