A Community-Based Randomized Controlled Trial of an Educational Intervention to Promote Retirement Saving Among Hispanics

Luisa R. Blanco (), O. Kenrik Duru () and Carol M. Mangione ()
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Luisa R. Blanco: Pepperdine University
O. Kenrik Duru: University of California Los Angeles
Carol M. Mangione: University of California Los Angeles

Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 2020, vol. 41, issue 2, No 8, 300-315

Abstract: Abstract We conducted a community-based randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the impact of an intervention to promote retirement saving among low- and moderate-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking Hispanics, who do not have access to an employer-sponsored retirement account. Our educational intervention provided participants with key information in Spanish related to financial planning for retirement and made use of “behavioral nudges” to encourage participants to open a government-sponsored retirement saving account, my Retirement Account (myRA). Among 142 participants (70 and 72 in control and treatment groups, respectively), we found a significant Difference in Differences (DD) on the proportion of those who opened a myRA. In the treatment group 14% of participants opened myRA, while none in the control group did. Results from a DD regression showed that after controlling for observable and unobservable characteristics through our design as an RCT, the effect of our intervention was 12%. When we restricted our sample to those participants who had a bank account at some point in the study, we found that the effect of our intervention was higher (17%). We also found that our intervention was effective in increasing self-reported knowledge related to retirement saving and preparedness.

Keywords: Aging; Behavioral nudges; Financial knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10834-019-09657-9

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