The Impact of Retirement on Household Leisure Expenditures

Abstract

Household leisure expenditures for retired and near-retired households were examined in order to better understand the dynamics associated with the move to retirement status. Data from the 1995 Consumer Expenditure Survey indicated that retirement, total expenditures, and education had positive impacts on leisure expenditures. For retired households, greater total expenditures and education increased expenditures, while age and the presence of earned income decreased expenditures. For near-retired households, greater total expenditures, education, and the presence of asset income significantly increased leisure expenditures.

The Trend in Retirement*

“…Note that the values for α and σ imply that the intertemporal elasticity of substitution for market consumption net of subsistence is 0.81. This value is well within the range suggested in the literature 19 . The baseline calibration is also consistent with the finding of Weagley and Huh (2004) discussed in , as the increase in leisure time that occurs at the moment of retirement generates a contemporaneous jump in expenditure on leisure goods.…”

“…In addition to spending more time with leisure goods, there is evidence that upon retirement, individuals increase the share of their expenditure that they allocate to leisure goods. Weagley and Huh (2004) find, using data from the 1995 Consumer Expenditure Survey, that controlling for age, education, income, and demographics, leisure goods’ share of total expenditure increases at retirement.…”

Place‐based Attributes and Spatial Expenditure Behavior in Tourism

“…These negative patterns are slightly mitigated by the positive increase in tourism expenditure of the elderly people; once the decision to consume tourism goods has been taken, older people show a conditional elasticity to tourism expenditure higher than that for younger people (Alegre et al., ; Bernini and Cracolici, ). The rationale is that in the early stage of the life‐cycle, families tend to store durable goods, while over a lifetime, expenditure on durable goods reduces and is substituted by consumption of recreational and leisure goods, like tourism (Weagley and Huh, ). However, the unconditional age effect is negative for both geographical areas, but its effect is lower for people living in the southern regions who suffer from less favorable economic conditions.…”

Recreational angling tournaments: participants' expenditures

“…working versus retired or student) that may be as relevant in explaining expenditure levels as items such as income. Following Weagley and Huh (2004), who nd that retirement leads to increasing levels of leisure expenditures, a negative coecient might be anticipated on this variable. (2000) for a detailed discussion of mixture models.…”