Buffering Shocks to Well-Being Late in Life

Matthew D. Shapiro
Additional contact information
Matthew D. Shapiro: University of Michigan and NBER

Working Papers from University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center

Abstract: Consumption provides a comprehensive measurement of economic well-being. This research shows that consumption is well-insured with respect to health status and widowing. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and its CAMS supplement, it shows that consumption responds little to changes in health status even though adverse health generates substantial out-of-pocket medical expenses. Similarly, the effect of widowing on consumption, though substantial, is not strongly driven by changes in economic resources. Men experience little loss of monetary resources when being widowed. Women have the same overall loss in consumption as men when being widowed despite greater declines in economic resources. Hence, despite the adverse consequences for income and wealth for female widows, women experience no greater drop in consumption from losing a spouse than do men.

Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2009-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-hap, nep-ias and nep-ltv
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp211.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden (http://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp211.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://mrdrc.isr.umich.edu/publications/Papers/pdf/wp211.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mrr:papers:wp211

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center P.O. Box 1248, Ann Arbor, MI 48104. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MRRC Administrator ().