IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/1354.html

Household Wealth and Body Mass Index: Towards a Healthy Ageing?

Author

Listed:
  • Belloc, Ignacio
  • Molina, José Alberto
  • Velilla, Jorge

Abstract

Studying the impact of exogenous wealth shocks on health-related outcomes can help policymakers in the design and evaluation of social programs that provide income to certain groups. This paper analyzes the impact of unexpected inheritances on Body Mass Index, using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, including 15 countries from 2004 to 2017. The results show that the receipt of an inheritance is negatively associated with BMI, and being overweight among females. When we account for individual heterogeneity, we find that the receipt of an unexpected inheritance reduces the probability of being overweight by 2.8% among women, and it increases the probability of women engaging in activities that involve moderate physical activity, and increases the amount spent on eating out. These results suggest that large increases in wealth may improve current weight problems and maintain higher life standards among women in later life, so policymakers may include the potential health-related benefits when implementing redistribution programs within those households.

Suggested Citation

  • Belloc, Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2023. "Household Wealth and Body Mass Index: Towards a Healthy Ageing?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1354, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1354
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/280282/1/GLO-DP-1354.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joan Costa-Font & Mario Györi, 2023. "Correction to: Income windfalls and overweight: evidence from lottery wins," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(4), pages 2011-2011, October.
    2. Joan Costa-Font & Mario Györi, 2023. "Income windfalls and overweight: evidence from lottery wins," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2005-2026, May.
    3. Gardner, Jonathan & Oswald, Andrew J., 2007. "Money and mental wellbeing: A longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 49-60, January.
    4. Christian Raschke, 2019. "Unexpected windfalls, education, and mental health: evidence from lottery winners in Germany," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 207-218, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Belloc, Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2025. "Consumption responses to inheritances: The role of durable goods," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ignacio Belloc & José Alberto Molina & Jorge Velilla, 2026. "Effects of Lottery Wins on Household Labor Supply," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 94(1), pages 90-115, January.
    2. Nguyen, Cuong Viet & Nguyen, Minh Khanh Hoang & Phung, Tung Duc & Tran, Oanh Ngoc, 2023. "The effect of income shocks on health behaviors: Evidence from a low-income country," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 257-276.
    3. Kim, Seonghoon & Koh, Kanghyock, 2021. "The effects of income on health: Evidence from lottery wins in Singapore," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    4. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    5. De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel & Oswald, Andrew J., 2012. "Estimating the influence of life satisfaction and positive affect on later income using sibling fixed-effects," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51523, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Meng, Xin & Xue, Sen, 2017. "Social Networks and Mental Health Problems: Evidence from Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China," IZA Discussion Papers 10481, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. Clémentine Garrouste & Mathilde Godard, 2016. "The lasting health impact of leaving school in a bad economy : Britons in the 1970s recession," Post-Print hal-01408637, HAL.
    8. Rémi Yin & Anthony Lepinteur & Andrew E Clark & Conchita d'Ambrosio, 2021. "Life Satisfaction and the Human Development Index Across the World," Working Papers halshs-03174513, HAL.
    9. Yihong Bai & Michel Grignon, 2024. "Why do drinkers earn more? Job characteristics as a possible link," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 1133-1152, June.
    10. Robin Maximilian Stetzka & Stefan Winter, 2023. "How rational is gambling?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1432-1488, September.
    11. Arik Levinson, 2013. "Happiness as a Public Policy Tool," Working Papers gueconwpa~13-13-04, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    12. Binder, Martin & Coad, Alex, 2013. "“I'm afraid I have bad news for you…” Estimating the impact of different health impairments on subjective well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 155-167.
    13. Susanne Väth & Michael Kirk, 2014. "Do property rights and contract farming matter for rural development? Evidence from a large-scale investment in Ghana," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201416, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    14. Jones, Andrew M. & Wildman, John, 2008. "Health, income and relative deprivation: Evidence from the BHPS," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 308-324, March.
    15. Joan Costa‐Font & Cristina Vilaplana‐Prieto, 2025. "The Hidden Value of Adult Informal Care in Europe," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(4), pages 791-812, April.
    16. Benedicte Apouey & Andrew E. Clark, 2015. "Winning Big but Feeling no Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(5), pages 516-538, May.
    17. Bucciol, Alessandro & Burro, Giovanni, 2022. "Is there a happiness premium for working in the public sector? Evidence from Italy," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    18. Xin Meng & Sen Xue, 2020. "Social networks and mental health outcomes: Chinese rural–urban migrant experience," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 155-195, January.
    19. Laetitia Lebihan, 2023. "Minimum wages and health: evidence from European countries," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 85-107, March.
    20. Zhang, Xin & Zhang, Xiaobo & Chen, Xi, 2017. "Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 81-94.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:glodps:1354. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.html .

    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.