The Mismatch Between Life Insurance Holdings and Financial Vulnerabilities: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

B. Douglas Bernheim (), Katherine Grace Carman, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence Kotlikoff ()

No 8544, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using the 1995 Survey of Consumer Finances and an elaborate life-cycle model, we quantify the potential financial impact of each individual's death on his or her survivors, and we measure the degree to which life insurance moderates these consequences. Life insurance is essentially uncorrelated with financial vulnerability at every stage of the life cycle. As a result, the impact of insurance among at-risk households is modest, and substantial uninsured vulnerabilities are widespread, particularly among younger couples. Roughly two-thirds of poverty among surviving women and more than one-third of poverty among surviving men results from a failure to insure survivors against an undiminished living standard. We also identify a systematic gender bias: for any given level of financial vulnerability, couples provide significantly more protection for wives than for husbands.

JEL-codes: D10 G22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge and nep-ias
Date: 2001-10
Note: AG PE
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Working Paper: The mismatch between life insurance holdings and financial vulnerabilities: evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances (2002)
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