Life-Course Trajectories of Risk-Taking Propensity: A Coordinated Analysis of Longitudinal Studies

Yunrui Liu, Alexandra Bagaïni, Gayoung Son, Madlaina Kapoor, Rui Mata and Shevaun Neupert

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2023, vol. 78, issue 3, 445-455

Abstract: ObjectivesHow does risk preference change across the life span? We address this question by conducting a coordinated analysis to obtain the first meta-analytic estimates of adult longitudinal age differences in risk-taking propensity in different domains.MethodsWe report results from 26 longitudinal samples (12 panels; 187,733 unique respondents; 19 countries) covering general and domain-specific risk-taking propensity (financial, driving, recreational, occupational, health) across 3 or more waves.ResultsResults revealed a negative relation between age and both general and domain-specific risk-taking propensity. Furthermore, females consistently reported lower levels of risk taking across the life span than males in all domains, but there is little support for the idea of an age by gender interaction. Although we found evidence of systematic and universal age differences, we also detected considerable heterogeneity across domains and samples.DiscussionOur work suggests a need to understand the nature of heterogeneity of age differences in risk-taking propensity and recommends the use of domain-specific and population estimates for applications interested in modeling heterogeneity in risk preference for economic and policy-making purposes.

Keywords: Age differences; Coordinated analysis; Domain specificity; Life-span development; Risk taking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

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