Premium
ON THE LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF ELDERLY WIDOWS *
Author(s) -
Bethencourt Carlos,
RíosRull JoséVíctor
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
international economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.658
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1468-2354
pISSN - 0020-6598
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2354.2009.00548.x
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , standard of living , cost of living , demographic economics , economics , variety (cybernetics) , living room , offspring , demography , scale (ratio) , gerontology , socioeconomics , geography , economic growth , sociology , medicine , statistics , mathematics , biology , pregnancy , architectural engineering , social science , engineering , market economy , genetics , cartography
Between 1970 and 1990, the share of elderly widows living alone grew by 23.2% in the United States, whereas those living with their children decreased by a similar amount. We pose a variety of models for determining the living arrangements in which living together increases consumption because of economies of scale and may also provide utility directly. We estimate these models using the 1970 data and obtain an excellent fit. The estimated models predict that changes in the incomes of both the widow and her offspring generate three‐quarters of the increase in the number of widows living alone.