The impact of the recession on the wealth of older immigrant and native households in the United States

Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes and Susan Pozo

IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 2015, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-27

Abstract: Using the 2006 and 2010 Health and Retirement Study, we explore how the recent recession impacted the wealth holding and retirement plans of older households in the United States. Of particular interest to us is whether the impact on household asset ownership, asset wealth and household retirement behavior varied with the nativity of the household and its standing in the wealth distribution prior to the onset of the recession. We find that the so-called Great Recession made a significant dent on the portfolios of older American households by eroding the value of specific assets to the point of delaying their planned retirement. Furthermore, its impacts were unevenly distributed across demographic and economic groups, with mixed and immigrant households in the middle and top wealth quartiles prior to the recession enduring significantly larger wealth losses than natives due, primarily, to their greater losses in primary housing ownership and primary housing values. JEL codes: D31; J26 Copyright Amuedo-Dorantes and Pozo; licensee Springer. 2015

Keywords: Great recession; Wealth; Older households; Immigrants; Natives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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DOI: 10.1186/s40173-015-0033-x

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