 The link between individual expectations and savings: Do nursing home expectations matter?Kristin Kleinjans and Jinkook Lee Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University Abstract: Preparing for the end of life, especially for the prospect of needing long-term care, is an important issue facing older Americans. Those who reach age 65 have a 40% chance of going into a nursing home in their remaining lifetime, and about 10% of those who do will stay there for at least five years. The costs of a stay are high with on average US$70,000 annually for a private room. Long-term stays in nursing homes are, therefore, not likely, but very expensive. In this paper, we examine individual expectations about future nursing home entry and study the relationship between these expectations and savings behavior, using data from the Health and Retirement Study. We find a clear relation between subjective expectations and probability of future nursing home entry, and a positive effect of these expectations on savings behavior. Surprisingly, we find no difference of this effect by wealth group, so it seems that Medicaid eligibility in the context of nursing home entry plays no factor in the decision to save. Keywords: expectations; nursing home; savings (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:aarhec:2006-05 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.