IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v73y2018i4p723-732..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Potential Effects of Obesity on Social Security Claiming Behavior and Retirement Benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Melissa A Z Knoll
  • Dave Shoffner
  • Samantha O’Leary

Abstract

ObjectivesObesity prevalence among Americans has increased for nearly three decades. We explore the relationship between the rise in obesity and Social Security retirement benefit claiming, a decision impacting nearly all aging Americans. Specifically, we investigate whether obesity can affect individuals’ decision to claim benefits early, a choice that has important implications for financial security in retirement, particularly for those with lower socioeconomic status (SES).MethodWe use a microsimulation model called MINT6 (Modeling Income in the Near Term, version 6) to demonstrate the potential effects of obesity on subjective life expectancy and claiming behavior. We impute obesity status using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which describes the distribution of obesity prevalence within the United States by gender, poverty status, and race/ethnicity.ResultsWe find that the rise in obesity and the consequent incidence of obesity-related diseases may lead some individuals to make claiming decisions that lead to lower monthly and lifetime Social Security retirement benefits. Further, we find that the potential economic impact of this decision is larger for those with lower SES.DiscussionWe present a behavioral perspective by addressing the potential effects that obesity can have on individuals’ retirement decisions and their resulting Social Security retirement benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Melissa A Z Knoll & Dave Shoffner & Samantha O’Leary, 2018. "The Potential Effects of Obesity on Social Security Claiming Behavior and Retirement Benefits," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(4), pages 723-732.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:73:y:2018:i:4:p:723-732.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbw016
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:73:y:2018:i:4:p:723-732.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.