IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/imfstp/v55y2008i4p566-594.html

Mortality and Lifetime Income: Evidence from U.S. Social Security Records

Author

Listed:
  • James E Duggan
  • Robert Gillingham
  • John S Greenlees

Abstract

Studies of the empirical relationship between income and mortality often rely on data aggregated by geographic areas and broad population groups and do not distinguish between disabled and nondisabled persons. This paper investigates the relationship between individual mortality and lifetime income with a large microdatabase of current and former retired participants in the U.S. Social Security system. Logit models by gender and race confirm a negative relationship. Differences in age of death between low and high levels of lifetime income are on the order of two to three years. Income-related mortality differences between blacks and whites are largest at low-income levels, but gender differences appear to be large and persistent across income levels. IMF Staff Papers (2008) 55, 566–594. doi:10.1057/imfsp.2008.21; published online 12 August 2008

Suggested Citation

  • James E Duggan & Robert Gillingham & John S Greenlees, 2008. "Mortality and Lifetime Income: Evidence from U.S. Social Security Records," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 55(4), pages 566-594, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:imfstp:v:55:y:2008:i:4:p:566-594
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v55/n4/pdf/imfsp200821a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfsp/journal/v55/n4/full/imfsp200821a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthew Weinzierl, 2014. "Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 45(2 (Fall)), pages 137-196.
    2. Cristia, Julian P., 2009. "Rising mortality and life expectancy differentials by lifetime earnings in the United States," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 984-995, September.
    3. Mathieu Lefebvre & Pierre Pestieau & Grégory Ponthière, 2013. "FGT Poverty Measures and the Mortality Paradox: Theory and Evidence," PSE Working Papers halshs-00845490, HAL.
    4. Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2011. "Differential Mortality by Income and Social Security Progressivity," NBER Chapters, in: Explorations in the Economics of Aging, pages 189-204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Juan Manuel Pérez-Salamero González & Marta Regúlez Castillo & Carlos Vidal-Meliá, 2021. "Mortality and life expectancy trends for male pensioners by pension income level," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2021-02, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico.
    6. Michael Rendall & Margaret Weden & Melissa Favreault & Hilary Waldron, 2011. "The Protective Effect of Marriage for Survival: A Review and Update," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(2), pages 481-506, May.
    7. Benjamin Ho & Sita N. Slavov, 2012. "An alternative perspective on health inequality," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(4), pages 3182-3196.
    8. Bahram Sanginabadi, 2017. "Resource Abundance and Life Expectancy," Papers 1801.00369, arXiv.org.
    9. Marianne Bitler & Theodore F. Figinski, 2024. "Long-Run Effects of Food Assistance: Evidence from the Food Stamp Program and Administrative Data," NBER Working Papers 33182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Mathieu Lefèbvre & Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2018. "FGT Old†Age Poverty Measures and the Mortality Paradox: Theory and Evidence," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 428-458, June.
    11. de Almeida, Filipa & Scott, Ian J. & Soro, Jerônimo C. & Fernandes, Daniel & Amaral, André R. & Catarino, Mafalda L. & Arêde, André & Ferreira, Mário B., 2024. "Financial scarcity and cognitive performance: A meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    12. Mathieu Lefebvre & Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2024. "Missing Poor in the U.S," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 22(4), pages 865-891, December.
    13. Friedrich Breyer & Stefan Hupfeld, 2009. "Fairness of Public Pensions and Old-Age Poverty," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 65(3), pages 358-380, September.
    14. Harriet Orcutt Duleep & David Jaeger, 2011. "Earnings Growth versus Measures of Income and Education for Predicting Mortality," Working Papers wp257, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    15. István Dedák & Noémi Fiser, 2026. "Does pension indexation matter? A contribution to the theory of pension indexation," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 601-618, February.
    16. Lefebvre, Mathieu & Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2019. "Missing poor and income mobility," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 330-366.
    17. Kåre Bævre & Øystein Kravdal, 2014. "The effects of earlier income variation on mortality: An analysis of Norwegian register data," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 68(1), pages 81-94, March.
    18. Matthew Weinzierl, 2014. "Seesaws and Social Security Benefits Indexing," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(2 (Fall)), pages 137-196.
    19. Hernán Bejarano & Hillard Kaplan & Stephen Rassenti, 2014. "Effects of Retirement and Lifetime Earnings Profile on Health Investment," Working Papers 14-21, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    20. Arthur Sakamoto & Christopher R. Tamborini & ChangHwan Kim, 2018. "Long-Term Earnings Differentials Between African American and White Men by Educational Level," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(1), pages 91-116, February.
    21. Kevin Milligan & Tammy Schirle, 2021. "The evolution of longevity: Evidence from Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 164-192, February.
    22. Sanginabadi, Bahram, 2021. "Oil and Mortality," OSF Preprints j2xqw, Center for Open Science.
    23. Stefan Hupfeld, 2011. "Non-monotonicity in the longevity–income relationship," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(1), pages 191-211, January.
    24. Julian P. Cristia, 2007. "The Empirical Relationship Between Lifetime Earnings and Mortality: Working Paper 2007-11," Working Papers 19096, Congressional Budget Office.
    25. Roozbeh Hosseini & Ali Shourideh, 2019. "Retirement Financing: An Optimal Reform Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(4), pages 1205-1265, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:imfstp:v:55:y:2008:i:4:p:566-594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.