Are Baby Boomers Richer Than Their Parents? Intergenerational Patterns of Wealth Ownership in the United States

Abstract

ࡗ Are Baby Boomers Richer Than Their Parents? Intergenerational Patterns of Wealth Ownership in the United StatesThis study compares wealth ownership and mobility patterns among baby boomers and their parents to explore whether the baby boomers have fared as well during their working years and whether they will be as secure in retirement as their parents. Cohort comparisons using survey data indicate that baby boomers had accumulated more wealth as young adults than their parents had at a similar age. Estimates from a simulation model reveal that baby boomers had more wealth than their actual same-sex parents at every stage of the life course. The simulation model also reveals that baby boomers were considerably more likely than their actual same-sex parents to experience upward wealth mobility at each point in the life course. These results suggest that speculations that baby boomers may be the first generation to do worse than their parents are misleading.

Sharing the Wealth: The Effect of Siblings on Adults' Wealth Ownership

“…The cohort is the later stage of the baby boom, a cohort in which more women work, educational attainment is higher than for earlier cohorts, and families postpone fertility and remain childless at high rates. These factors have allowed this cohort to accumulate considerably more assets than previous generations (Keister and Deeb-Sossa 2000), and it is possible that a cohort effect produced some of the results evident in the findings presented here. However, the large number of control variables included in the models should account for most of the otherwise unobserved cohort effect.…”

Racial/ethnic disparities in midlife depressive symptoms: The role of cumulative disadvantage across the life course

“…Even in the presence of economic recessions in the 1980s and 1990s, the baby boom cohort can be characterized as experiencing relative economic prosperity during their working years compared to prior cohorts, particularly for women given increases in women's labor force participation and reduced fertility, and particularly for the early boomers compared to the later boomers (Keister and Deeb-Sossa 2001). Of course, such trends vary across racial and ethnic groups, with blacks, and particularly black men, experiencing greater decline in labor market opportunities during that time (Wilson 1987).…”

Old-Age Wealth in Mexico

“…A life-course perspective has also been adopted in the study of retirement behavior, in which measures of early-life work experience and family formation are considered determinants of late-life labor force participation (Henretta 2003; O’Rand and Henretta 1982). Another branch of the literature focuses on late-life financial wealth as the outcome and considers earlier labor force participation and income as determinants of late-life economic well-being (Keister and Deeb-Sossa 2001; Keister and Moller 2000; Poterba, Venti, and Wise 1998; Smith, Stafford, and Walker 2003). …”

“…The majority of this research, particularly that focusing on determinants of wealth, has been conducted in high-income countries (Keister and Deeb-Sossa 2001; Keister and Moller 2000). Much of the research regarding individual well-being in old age also focuses on men, because the spotlight tends to be on the cumulative effect of work and retirement decisions, and the information on wages and occupations is richer for men (Keister 2000; Palloni 2006).…”