Abstract
The questionable ability of the U.S. pension system to provide for the growing elderly population combined with the rising number of people affected by depression and other mental health issues magnifies the need to understand how these household characteristics affect retirement. Mental health problems have a large and significant negative effect on retirement savings. Specifically, psychological distress is associated with decreasing the probability of holding retirement accounts by as much as 24 percentage points and decreasing retirement savings as a share of financial assets by as much as 67 percentage points. The magnitude of these effects underscores the importance of employer management policy and government regulation of these accounts to help ensure households have adequate retirement savings.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 404-425 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Health Economics (United Kingdom) |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 1 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:7The household may consist of a single male, single female or a married couple. For married couples our framework is implicitly unitary. It treats the household as a single decision-making unit with one utility function and pooled income. 8Given liquidity premiums, more illiquid assets would generally have a higher rate of return. 9The PSID is produced and distributed by the Institute for Social Research, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 10The HRS is sponsored by the National Institute of Aging and conducted by the University of Michigan.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Keywords
- depression
- household finance
- mental health
- retirement savings
- social security
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
