Overview

Aging in America imposes dramatic personal, social, and economic changes. Retirees have substantial power to affect both business and public policy decision making. This book analyzes the expenditure patterns of older households to characterize their comparative lifestyles and quality of life. Expenditure patterns of various elderly households are examined over time and compared with the non-elderly. Particular emphasis is placed on analysis of necessity and health care expenditures. The authors empirically test the dominant theories of consumer life-cycle behavior. They conclude that these theories do not provide a consistent explanation for the expenditures of heterogeneous age and income groups and that alternate theories—the precautionary theory of elderly savings or the theory of positional goods—have credence.

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9780275958749

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Reviews

Expenditures of Older Americans offers valuable information to a number of potential users. We all know that older people are living longer and therefore growing as a share of the population and that this situation exists over most of the world, but few of us know anything more. This book, using reliable data, presents expert analysis to help in a number of ways....Any business or service organization which deals with people as customers, employees, or community representatives can benefit from learning to perceive older people in a variety of different groups.... Legislation, regulation, and everyday transactions in the marketplace and in ordinary human encounters involve more and more older people; to what extent their needs or their perceived needs deserve special attention is still being worked out. The authors provide help in these matters by describing trends and their implications for the future. -Carolyn Shaw Bell Katharine Coman Professor of Economics (emerita) Wellesley College

Author Information

ROSE M. RUBIN is Professor of Economics at the University of Memphis. She is coauthor of Working Wives and Dual-Earner Families (Praeger, 1994). MICHAEL L. NIESWIADOMY is Professor of Economics at the University of North Texas.

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