TY - JOUR T1 - Do Households Increase Their Savings When the Kids Leave Home? JF - The Journal of Retirement Y1 - 2021 A1 - Irena Dushi A1 - Alicia H. Munnell A1 - Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher A1 - Anthony Webb A1 - Anqi Chen KW - children KW - consumption KW - Households KW - Savings AB - Much of the disagreement over whether households are adequately prepared for retirement reflects differences in assumptions regarding the extent to which consumption declines when the kids leave home. If consumption declines substantially when the kids leave home, as some life-cycle models of retirement saving assume, households need to achieve lower replacement rates in retirement and need to accumulate less wealth. Using administrative tax data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), as well as the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), this article investigates whether household consumption declines when kids leave the home and, if so, by how much. Because consumption data are noisy and savings is the flip side of consumption, this article examines whether savings in 401(k) plans increase when the kids leave home. The article also investigates alternative methods of saving, including non-401(k) savings and increased mortgage payments. VL - 9 IS - 2 ER - TY - RPRT T1 - How much income do retirees actually have? Evaluating the evidence from five national datasets. Y1 - 2018 A1 - Anqi Chen A1 - Alicia H. Munnell A1 - Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher KW - Finances KW - Income KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - Recent research by Bee and Mitchell (2017) has refocused attention on the fact that the Current Population Survey (CPS) underestimates retirement income. In the wake of this study, some observers have questioned whether other surveys more frequently used by retirement researchers also understate retirement income and, if so, whether prior research suggesting that many households are unprepared for retirement is accurate. This paper addresses both questions by examining retirement income data from the CPS and four other surveys: 1) the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF); 2) the Health and Retirement Study (HRS); 3) the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (PSID); and 4) the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The paper compares the income measures from each survey to administrative data from tax and Social Security records, both in aggregate and across the income distribution. It then uses a common measure of retirement income adequacy, the replacement rate, to assess overall household preparedness for retirement. JF - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College Working Paper Series PB - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College CY - Chestnut Hill, MA UR - http://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/wp_2018-14__.pdf ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Do Households Save More When the Kids Leave Home? Y1 - 2016 A1 - Alicia H. Munnell A1 - Irena Dushi A1 - Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher A1 - Anthony Webb A1 - Anqi Chen KW - 401(k) KW - Family KW - Family Characteristics AB - Kids are expensive. As a result, when children become financially independent, parents often have a substantial amount of extra money on hand. In this case, they have two basic choices: spend more on themselves or increase their saving for retirement. What they actually do is an open question. PB - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College UR - https://crr.bc.edu/briefs/do-households-save-more-when-the-kids-leave-home/ ER -