Does retirement make people more risk averse?

Lingguo Cheng and Yunfeng Lu

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2024, vol. 224, issue C, 135-155

Abstract: We investigate whether retirement makes people more risk averse. Using a nationally representative household survey dataset from urban China, we adopt a local randomization regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effect of retirement on risk attitudes. We find that males become more risk averse after they have retired while females do not; consistently, households tend to participate less in the stock market and invest a lower fraction of financial assets in stocks when their male heads retire but exhibit no such patterns when female heads retire. Therefore, the impact of retirement on risk attitudes exhibits significant gender heterogeneity. Pathway analyses suggest that the decrease in risk taking is largely driven by the decline in income flow after retirement.

Keywords: Risk attitudes; Retirement; Local randomization regression discontinuity design; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 D91 G51 J14 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:224:y:2024:i:c:p:135-155

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2024.05.004

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