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Racial Disparities in Life Insurance Coverage

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  • Harris, Timothy
  • Yelowitz, Aaron

Abstract

We evaluate the extent to which there are racial disparities in life insurance coverage using multiple years of the Survey of Income and Program Participation between 2001 and 2010. We find that African-Americans hold significantly more life insurance after controlling for other factors, especially employer-sponsored and whole life insurance. We demonstrate that our findings diverge from prior work because we examine all households instead of focusing exclusively on married and cohabitating households. The findings on life insurance coverage and composition imply that earnings shocks due to mortality are not a contributing factor to racial disparities in wealth.

Suggested Citation

  • Harris, Timothy & Yelowitz, Aaron, 2015. "Racial Disparities in Life Insurance Coverage," MPRA Paper 64005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:64005
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    Cited by:

    1. Timothy F. Harris & Aaron Yelowitz, 2017. "Nudging Life Insurance Holdings In The Workplace," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 951-981, April.
    2. Timothy F. Harris & Aaron Yelowitz, 2018. "Life Insurance Holdings And Well‐Being Of Surviving Spouses," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(3), pages 526-538, July.
    3. Darrell J. Gaskin & Eric T. Roberts & Kitty S. Chan & Rachael McCleary & Christine Buttorff & Benjo A. Delarmente, 2019. "No Man is an Island: The Impact of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Mortality," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-18, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Life Insurance; Racial disparities; Employer Sponsored Life Insurance; Whole Life Insurance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

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