For the purpose of taking care of the workers and their families in their old age two different plans of relief have been worked out: first, compulsory old age insurance, and second state pension systems. In Germany and France, which with several other European countries have the system of compulsory old age insurance, payments to the insurance fund are made by both employers and employees. The old age pension begins in Germany at the age of seventy and in France at the age of sixty. Great Britain in 1908 adopted a system of non-contributory old age insurance. The whole of the burden is borne by the state and benefits of from one to five shillings per week are paid to persons of over seventy years of age whose income does not exceed thirty-one pounds and ten shillings a year.

By invalidity is meant under the French system total and permanent disability to earn a living. Under the British system invalidity means total disablement but not necessarily permanent disability. Under the German law a disability reducing the earning capacity to one-third of the normal establishes invalidity. As a general thing the state as well as employer and employee contributes to the fund for invalidity insurance. The administration of the invalidity insurance is usually closely bound up with that of sickness or old age insurance and the insurance itself is often difficult to distinguish from the other forms.

Where death results from industrial accidents funeral expenses and pensions to dependents are usually provided for under the recent workmen's compensation laws of this country. In addition to this protection workingmen of course have the same privilege of securing life insurance from commercial insurance companies and from fraternal societies as have other persons. Several of the American states have adopted systems of mothers' pensions or widows' and orphans' pensions. The first of these pension acts was passed by Illinois in 1911. These pensions are grants made by the state and they do not involve the payment of premiums for insurance. In the European systems, on the other hand, there are systems of compulsory life insurance, to the funds of which employers and employees as well as the state contribute.