Draft
Household Retirement Savings: Are Spouses Saving Together?
Feb 3, 2017
Through our Center for Financial and Economic Decisionmaking (CFED), RAND researchers study how individuals and families make financial decisions and examine how public policy can be leveraged to help improve financial stability.
The decrease in defined benefit pension plans use, coupled with an increase in the life span, is shaping how individuals plan financially for their retirement. CFED researchers investigate how households save for retirement, invest their savings, and spend down their assets in retirement.
CFED researchers design, implement, and evaluate interventions targeted at helping individuals build savings, improve credit, reduce debt, and strengthen financial literacy and capability.
The RAND Behavioral Finance Forum is an annual conference and webinar series for federal government, academic, and industry leaders on behavioral finance topics such as retirement security, consumer financial protection, and financial advice.
The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) is a longitudinal household survey that facilitates research into different aspects of population aging in the United States. The RAND HRS Longitudinal File is a cleaned, easy-to-use, and streamlined data product containing information from the HRS, including variables on demographics, health and insurance, Social Security, pensions, family structure, retirement plans, expectations, and employment history.
This paper examines the transition from full-time work to fully retired among dual earning couples, which we call joint retirement trajectories. We analyze 12 waves of the Health and Retirement Study to map out the distribution of potential pathways that couples undertake when retiring.
This study explores the impact of workplace financial wellbeing interventions (WFWI) on the mental health of young workers, through analysis of Britain and Asia's Healthiest Workplace survey data and a literature review. Findings suggest that WFWI are a potentially promising approach, but there is a pressing need for further evidence. Employees should consider implementing WFWI and we provide recommendations to support this process.
In this study we explore the likely and proven impact of workplace financial wellbeing interventions on the mental health of young workers, through analysis of Britain and Asia's Healthiest Workplace survey data and a literature review.
This study fielded a survey in RAND's American Life Panel, coinciding with the partial reintroduction of the Social Security Statement. The findings indicate that regular mailings can play a role in shaping workers' retirement plans.
This paper examines how financial literacy is associated with three types of financial decisions pertinent to older individuals: adherence to timely credit card repayment, stock market participation, and risk diversification of household assets.
The RAND Behavioral Finance Forum conference, held in partnership with AARP, was presented virtually in 2020. Leaders from academia, government, regulatory agencies, and industry were invited to share the latest research and exchange ideas on how to leverage behavioral principles to promote financial well-being, broadly conceived. The 2020 theme was "financial security over the lifespan."
In this report, the authors describe results from several waves of a survey fielded through the RAND Corporation's American Life Panel to assess the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on households' financial well-being. The authors find that the share of households experiencing difficulty with paying bills has increased throughout the pandemic. Those who experience difficulties are more likely to turn to informal methods to fund expenditures.
Our goal in this study is estimate, on net, the financial effects of early-stage Alzheimer's Disease, from the start of first symptoms to diagnosis, on individuals and their families.
Identifies key decisions prior to retirement that may be correlated with insecurity in later years and populations who may benefit most from targeted information.
Investigates the main barriers to the accumulation of retirement savings faced by minority groups in the United States.
This paper reports the first analysis of older Singaporeans' financial literacy using a unique new dataset, the Singapore Life Panel (SLP®).