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The Living Arrangements of Elderly Widows, their Children, and their Children's Spouses

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  • Carlos BETHENCOURT

    (Universidad de la Laguna)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role that the marital status of children has in shaping the living arrangements of their widowed mothers and themselves and to explain the increase in the proportion of elderly widows living alone, which grew by 23.2% in the USA between 1970 and 1990. We propose a model where living arrangements are determined as the outcome of a game between the mother and her child, and where the fundamentals of the model depend on children's marital status. We estimate the model using 1970 data. We calculate the accuracy of the estimation and we obtain an excellent fit. Using the same measure of accuracy, the estimated model predicts that changes in the incomes of both the widow and her offspring and changes in the children's marital status generate more than the 83% of the increase in the number of widows living alone.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos BETHENCOURT, 2019. "The Living Arrangements of Elderly Widows, their Children, and their Children's Spouses," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(2), pages 095-121, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:85:y:2019:i:2:p:095-121
    DOI: 10.1017/dem.2018.20
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    Cited by:

    1. Christopoulou, Rebekka & Pantalidou, Maria, 2022. "The parental home as labor market insurance for young Greeks during the Great Recession," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 313-350, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intergenerational household formation; Living arrangements; Marital status;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • C80 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - General

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