US consumers may turn to the private market for credit when income and government benefits fall short. The most vulnerable consumers have access only to the highest-cost loans. Prior research on trade-offs of credit with government welfare support cannot distinguish between distinct forms of unsecured credit due to data limitations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The medical diagnosis of a disease is common in older age and can carry significant financial costs. For many older adults, equity in a home is their primary component of wealth; however, housing wealth is illiquid. We analyze the relationship between the liquidation of housing wealth through mortgage borrowing on older homeowners' ability to successfully control a disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe relationship between wealth and health is an important yet complex topic for health research. While prior studies document the importance of wealth for healthy aging, the understanding of the mechanisms through which wealth supports health consumption is limited. We investigate the wealth-to-health link by explicitly modeling the effect of liquidating home equity through borrowing on health expenditures, measured here as cost-related non-adherence to prescription medications (CRN), following the onset of one of six costly diseases on or after age 65.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Financial debt held by older adults in the U.S. has grown over the past two decades.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci
April 2021
Objectives: This study examines the relationship of debt stress and reverse mortgage borrowing and compares it to stress from standard mortgages and consumer debt. Debt stress is measured as a self-reported response to the amount of debt.
Methods: Using a unique national data set of 1,026 homeowners who chose whether to obtain a reverse mortgage in 2010, we estimate the relationship of 2014 levels of debt stress with various types of debt, assets, and income.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci
March 2020
Objectives: Reverse mortgages allow adults aged 62 years and older to borrow against the equity in their homes without incurring monthly loan repayments. This study examines the relationship of reverse mortgage borrowing with older adults' satisfaction with their financial situation, housing, health, and daily life/leisure as well as with life as a whole.
Method: A new national data set of 1,088 older adults, comprised of loan data, credit histories, and responses to a phone survey, was created.
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