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Racial Differences in the Demand for Life Insurance
Author(s) -
Gutter Michael S.,
Hatcher Charles B.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of risk and insurance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1539-6975
pISSN - 0022-4367
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6975.2008.00279.x
Subject(s) - life insurance , demographics , human capital , demographic economics , white (mutation) , business , capital (architecture) , actuarial science , economics , economic growth , demography , geography , sociology , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , gene
The objective of this article is to measure racial differences in the proportion of human capital that households protect with life insurance. Using the 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances data, racial differences in two stages of the process are tested, where it is assumed that households must decide both whether or not to purchase life insurance and how much of their human capital to insure (if they decide to purchase). Among married and cohabitating households, we find that, controlling for demographics and other factors, there is little difference in life insurance ownership between black and white households but that white households insure a larger proportion of their human capital than black households.