TY - RPRT T1 - What Determines End-of-Life Assets? A Retrospective View Y1 - 2015 A1 - James M. Poterba A1 - Steven F Venti A1 - David A Wise KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Women and Minorities AB - We consider assets when individuals were last observed prior to death in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and trace assets backwards to the age when these individuals were first observed. For most individuals, assets in the last year observed (LYO) were very similar to assets in the first year observed (FYO). In particular, most of those who were last observed with very low asset levels also had low assets when first observed. We also estimate the relationship between an individual's asset change between the first and last date of observation, that individual's education and health status when first observed, and that individual's within-sample changes in health and family composition. We obtain estimates for HRS respondents who were 51 to 61 in 1992 and for AHEAD respondents who were age 70 and over in 1993. U4 - Consumption/Saving/Wealth/Economics of the Elderly/Economics of the Handicapped/Non-labor Market Discrimination ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Were They Prepared for Retirement? Financial Status at Advanced Ages in the HRS and AHEAD Cohorts Y1 - 2012 A1 - James M. Poterba A1 - Steven F Venti A1 - David A Wise KW - Consumption and Savings KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Event History/Life Cycle KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Women and Minorities AB - Many analysts have considered whether households approaching retirement age have accumulated enough assets to be well prepared for retirement. In this paper, we shift from studying household finances at the start of the retirement period, an ex ante measure of retirement preparation, to studying the asset holdings of households in their last years of life. The analysis is based on Health and Retirement Study with special attention to Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) cohort that was first surveyed in 1993. We consider the level of assets that households hold in the last survey wave preceding their death. We study how assets at the end of life depend on three family status pathways prior to death--(1) original one-person households in 1993, (2) persons in two-person household in 1993 with a deceased spouse in the last year observed, and (3) persons in two-person households in 1993 with the spouse alive when last observed. We find that a substantial fraction of persons die with virtually no financial assets--46.1 percent with less than 10,000--and many of these households also have no housing wealth and rely almost entirely on Social Security benefits for support. In addition this group is disproportionately in poor health. Based on a replacement rate comparison, many of these households may be deemed to have been well-prepared for retirement, in the sense that their income in their final years was not substantially lower than their income in their late 50s or early 60s. Yet with such low asset levels, they would have little capacity to pay for unanticipated needs such as health expenses or other financial shocks or to pay for entertainment, travel, or other activities. This raises a question of whether the replacement ratio is a sufficient statistic for the adequacy of retirement preparation. PB - National Bureau of Economic Research UR - URL:http://www.nber.org/papers/w17824.pdf URL N1 - National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, NBER Working Papers: 17824, 2012 0898-2937 Working Paper U4 - Asset accumulation/Personal Finance/Intertemporal Consumer Choice/Life Cycle Models and Saving/Economics of the Elderly/Economics of the Handicapped/Non-labor Market Discrimination ER - TY - RPRT T1 - What Is The Impact Of Foreclosures On Retirement Security? Y1 - 2010 A1 - Irena Dushi A1 - Friedberg, Leora A1 - Anthony Webb KW - Net Worth and Assets AB - Using data from several sources, we show that households nearing retirement have lower rates of housing distress than younger households, as measured by arrears and foreclosure rates. However, almost all of the housing wealth gains observed for cohorts aged 51-56 between 1992 and 2004 were erased by 2010, while their mortgages have grown throughout. As a consequence, their loan-to-value ratios are considerably higher, though the percentage paying more than 30 percent of their household income towards their mortgage remains flat. Worrisomely, their financial wealth also declined between 2004 and 2010. Declines in house prices will adversely affect households that need to liquidate housing wealth, and rising mortgage obligations will increase pressure on retirement resources. We develop an econometric model to show factors associated with housing distress and then use the results to forecast housing distress among older households through 2012. We project that the risk of arrears will increase to 3.4 percent in 2010 and 4.4 percent by 2012. We also find that 6.7 percent of HRS households have children or other relatives who are facing housing distress, potentially putting further pressure on their retirement preparedness. PB - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College UR - http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/95949.pdf U4 - housing wealth/mortgage obligation/foreclosure rates ER - TY - RPRT T1 - What Effect Do Time Constraints Have on the Age of Retirement? Y1 - 2008 A1 - Friedberg, Leora A1 - Wei Sun A1 - Anthony Webb KW - Employment and Labor Force KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Retirement Planning and Satisfaction AB - Work affects both the time available for non-market activities and the times at which those activities are performed and therefore work-induced constraints on time use may influence retirement decisions. We analyze these effects by combining new data from the American Time Use Survey with information on retirement in the Health and Retirement Study. We find that the propensity to engage in three types of non-work activities household production, leisure, and tertiary activities (eating, sleeping, grooming) are substantially altered by work. Moreover, the ways in which the timing of these activities are distorted differ across ten different job types (industry-occupation combinations) that we examine in the ATUS. We use the resulting measures of time distortions as control variables in multinomial logit retirement models that we estimate in the HRS. Older workers in jobs with greater distortions to the quantity and timing of leisure activities have an increased propensity to leave those jobs, either for new jobs or for retirement. On the other hand, workers in jobs with greater distortions to household production have a reduced propensity to leave their jobs, and distortions to tertiary activities raise the propensity to take new jobs but reduce the propensity to retire. JF - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College Working Papers PB - Center for Retirement Research at Boston College CY - Boston UR - https://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/what-effect-do-time-constraints-have-on-the-age-of-retirement/ U4 - Household Production/Leisure/Working Hours/Retirement planning ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Widowhood, Divorce and Loss of Health Insurance Among Near-Elderly Women: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study Y1 - 2003 A1 - David R Weir A1 - Robert J. Willis KW - Adult children KW - Demographics KW - Medicare/Medicaid/Health Insurance KW - Net Worth and Assets KW - Women and Minorities AB - We have found modest effects of widowhood events on loss of health insurance. There are also modest effects of widowhood on labor supply, which we have not as yet attempted to attribute to insurance demand. Even new widowhood events, however, are not random with respect to initial conditions. Both initial health insurance status and risk of future widowhood are related to basic characteristics observed when married at baseline. When these confounding variables are controlled for in models of the effect of widowhood events on uninsurance, there is no longer statistical evidence of an independent effect of husband's death on risk of losing insurance. Part of the reason why the measured independent effect of widowhood appears small is that there are events within marriage that can also affect insurance coverage, such as retirement or health events. Even though the number of uninsured women whose lack of coverage can be attributed to widowhood is therefore small, and not a distinct major policy motive for changes in age of eligibility for Medicare, uninsurance rates overall among the near elderly, and the potential public burden of cost-shifting from years just before 65 to years just after gaining Medicare coverage, suggest that Medicare eligibility policies should be a focus of continued research. JF - Michigan Retirement Research Center Research Paper PB - Michigan Retirement Research Center, University of Michigan CY - Ann Arbor, MI UR - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1090894 U4 - Widowhood/Divorce/Health Insurance Coverage/Middle Aged Adults/Women ER - TY - RPRT T1 - Who Becomes a Stockholder? Expectations, Subjective Uncertainty, and Asset Allocation Y1 - 2002 A1 - Kezdi, Gabor A1 - Robert J. Willis KW - Net Worth and Assets JF - MRDRC Publications PB - Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center, University of Michigan CY - Ann Arbor, MI UR - https://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/who-becomes-a-stockholder-expectations-subjective-uncertainty-and-asset-allocation/ U4 - Assets/Stock Market ER - TY - NEWS T1 - Widow's poverty tied to length of time since husband's death T2 - USA Today Electronic News Y1 - 2000 A1 - Wheeler, Larry KW - Net Worth and Assets JF - USA Today Electronic News PB - USA Today U4 - Widowhood JO - Widow's poverty tied to length of time since husband's death ER -