AVAILABILITY OF OFFSPRING AND THE HOUSEHOLD POSITION OF ELDERLY WOMEN- ICELAND 1901

Retirement possibilities in nineteenth-century Iceland were largely re stricted to residing within the household of an offspring. Using evide nce extracted from the national census of 1901 we attempt to evaluate the importance which the availability of offspring played the househol d position of elderly married women and widows. The results indicate t hat women who were forced to give up headship without the possibility of retirement within the household of an offspring had on average fewe r children alive than those who managed to exchange headship for resid ence within the home of a married child. However, married women tended to retain headship long past the age of 60, whereas the loss of a spo use usually resulted in changes in household position. We find that th ere existed a closer correlation between the number of surviving child ren and the household position of widows than was the case as regards married women.