ON THE LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF ELDERLY WIDOWS

Carlos Bethencourt and José-Víctor Ríos-Rull

International Economic Review, 2009, vol. 50, issue 3, 773-801

Abstract: Between 1970 and 1990, the share of elderly widows living alone grew by 23.2% in the United States, whereas those living with their children decreased by a similar amount. We pose a variety of models for determining the living arrangements in which living together increases consumption because of economies of scale and may also provide utility directly. We estimate these models using the 1970 data and obtain an excellent fit. The estimated models predict that changes in the incomes of both the widow and her offspring generate three-quarters of the increase in the number of widows living alone. Copyright © (2009) by the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: On the The Living Arrangements of Elderly Widows (2004)
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:ier:iecrev:v:50:y:2009:i:3:p:773-801

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0020-6598

Access Statistics for this article

International Economic Review is currently edited by Harold L. Cole

More articles in International Economic Review from Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association 160 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing () and ().