Purvi Sevak

Gender, Marriage, and Asset Accumulation in the United States

Wealth accumulation has important implications for the relative well-being of households. This article describes how household wealth in the United States varies by gender and family type. Evidence is found of large differences in observed wealth between single-female-headed households and married couples. Although some of this gap reflects differences in observable characteristics correlated with gender and wealth -- such as position in the life cycle, education, and family earnings -- controlling for these characteristics reduces but does not eliminate the estimated wealth gap. The wealth holdings of single females in the US, controlling for these same characteristics, are also significantly lower than the wealth holdings of single males. In contrast, observed wealth gaps between genders in a sub-sample of young households disappear when controlling for observable characteristics, suggesting either that in the US these gaps are disappearing for younger households or that these gaps do not emerge until later in life.

AFDC, SSI, and Welfare Reform Aggressiveness Caseload Reductions versus Caseload Shifting

Welfare reform has made receipt of cash benefits more difficult and less attractive for single mothers. We examine whether reforms of AFDC affected caseloads of another program—Supplemental Security Income (SSI). We exploit state variation in welfare reform over time, and find that femaleheaded households in states aggressively pursuing welfare reform were 21.6 percent more likely to receive SSI. This implies that a decrease in caseloads in one program cannot be interpreted as an equal-sized decrease in the number of families receiving public assistance. In addition, our results have policy implications for the well-being of families affected by welfare reform time limits.

Wealth Shocks and Retirement Timing: Evidence from the Nineties

This paper explores whether the timing of retirement responds to unexpected changes in wealth. Although the normality of leisure is a standard assumption in economic models, econometric support for it has not been consistent. The period of the 1990s allows a reexamination of this question because of the large and unexpected capital gains realized by many households. Using the 1992 to 1998 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, and two different identification strategies, I find evidence consistent with the theoretical expectations of wealth effects. Difference-in-differences estimates suggest that a

Disability Symptoms and the Price of Self-Sufficiency

50,000 wealth shock would lead to a 1.9 percentage point increase in retirement probability among individuals ages 55 to 60. Estimates using panel data on savings and wealth find the elasticity of retirement flows between 1996 and 1998 with respect to wealth is between 0.39 and 0.50 for men.

Economic Adjustment of Recent Retirees to Adverse Wealth Shocks

Objective: Disability symptoms are tiredness, slowness, and pain doing daily tasks made difficult by health. The authors study factors that increase and decrease disability symptoms, especially effects of equipment and personal assistance. Method: In National Health Interview Survey Disability Supplement Phase 2, people with personal care and household management disabilities were asked about fatigue, taking a long time, and pain when doing tasks on their own and with assistance. The authors study persons ages 55 and older. Results: Poor overall health or disability and severe disability in tasks increase disability symptom chances by 11% to 18%. Assistance users are 19% to 20% less likely to have symptoms than nonusers. Personal help, alone, or with equipment, relieves symptoms better than equipment only, by9%to 13%. Discussion: Equipment-only users are self-sufficient, a highly prized situation. Because they actively engage in tasks, symptoms are still likely. This trade-off of psychological gain with comfort loss may be preferable to personal help.

Individual Characteristics and the Disability Employment Gap

Since the mid-nineties, the stock market has had an unprecedented impact on the wealth of current and future retirees. Using data from the Current Population Survey and the Health and Retirement Study, this report estimates consumption and labor supply responses of individuals in their 50s and 60s to the recent stock market downturn. We estimate an elasticity of consumption with respect to wealth changes ranging from five to seven percent. This implies that households respond to a decline in wealth by reducing their consumption by 5 to 7 percent of the wealth decline. For example, if a households wealth declined by

Immigrant-Native Fertility and Mortality Differentials in the United States

100,000, this estimate suggests they would reduce their annual consumption by

Taxes, Wages, and the Labor Supply of Older Americans.

5,000 to

How do Immigrants Fare in Retirement

7,000. Among retirees, we do not observe any re-entry into the labor force in response to wealth losses due to stock market declines. This suggests that retirement is more or less an absorbing state, for either supply or demand reasons: once an individual retires, it is very difficult to become employed once again.

The Economic Consequences of Widowhood

Although people with disabilities have poorer employment outcomes, on average, than do people without disabilities, some of them fare relatively well in the labor market. To learn more about the individual characteristics associated with positive employment outcomes among people with disabilities, we use data from the 2009–2011 American Community Survey to examine differences in employment outcomes by demographic and other individual characteristics in a multivariable framework. Controlling for all other individual characteristics, we find the employment gap between individuals with and without disabilities is smaller among those in their 20s and 60s relative to the middle aged, Asians relative to Whites, Hispanics relative to non-Hispanics, married individuals, individuals with higher levels of educational attainment, and women. Overall, results suggest that policies and practices designed to improve employment outcomes among people with disabilities should consider how individual characteristics interact with disability as challenges to or facilitators of employment success.