Health and retirement effects in a collective consumption model of elderly households

Health and retirement effects in a collective consumption model of elderly households

Collection:
Health Policy and Services Research
Series Title(s):
Center for Retirement Research working paper
Contributor(s):
Lewbel, Arthur
Seitz, Shannon.
Boston College. Center for Retirement Research.
Publication:
Chestnut Hill, MA : Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, c2011
Language(s):
English
Format:
Text
Subject(s):
Economics -- statistics & numerical data
Family Characteristics
Health Status
Income
Resource Allocation -- statistics & numerical data
Retirement
Aged
Cost of Illness
Data Collection
Marital Status
Models, Theoretical
Socioeconomic Factors
United States
Genre(s):
Technical Report
Abstract:
Using data on older individuals and couples, we estimate a collective model of household consumption of a variety of goods, showing how resources are shared between husbands and wives, and how this allocation is affected by retirement and health status. We identify the extent to which shared consumption of goods by older married couples reduces the costs of living together relative to living alone. We also identify the fraction of household resources consumed by wives versus husbands, taking the jointness of some consumption into account. The results are relevant for household bargaining models and for a variety of welfare calculations. Among other results, we find that older couples save between 24 and 40 percent on expenditures by sharing consumption of goods, that older wives consume between 30 and 42 percent of total household expenditures (taking sharing of goods into account), and that these shares are little affected by retirement, but increase dramatically when the husband's health is poorer.
Copyright:
Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
NLM Unique ID:
101554624 (See catalog record)
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101554624