IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/buseco/v52y2017i1d10.1057_s11369-017-0020-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Young People Becoming More Risk Averse? An Analysis of Factors Contributing to the Rise in Precautionary Savings Among Young Adults

Author

Listed:
  • LaVaughn M. Henry

    (Harvard University
    Rockhurst University)

Abstract

Since the late 1980s, young people aged 18–34 have increasingly stated that their primary reason for increasing their saving rate has been to protect themselves against uncertain future times. The rate of increase in “precautionary” savings exceeds that of all other age groups, and has occurred against a backdrop of declining real income, a tepid economic recovery from the Great Recession of 2008–09, a tightened credit environment, and changing household demographics. This study considers the impact of these and other elements on young adults’ decisions to save for precautionary purposes, and considers what possible impacts these developments might have for broader consumption and production trends in the U.S economy.

Suggested Citation

  • LaVaughn M. Henry, 2017. "Are Young People Becoming More Risk Averse? An Analysis of Factors Contributing to the Rise in Precautionary Savings Among Young Adults," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 52(1), pages 32-40, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:buseco:v:52:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1057_s11369-017-0020-x
    DOI: 10.1057/s11369-017-0020-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s11369-017-0020-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s11369-017-0020-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Aguiar & Mark Bils, 2015. "Has Consumption Inequality Mirrored Income Inequality?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(9), pages 2725-2756, September.
    2. Jonathan McCarthy & Charles Steindel, 2007. "Housing Activity and Consumer Spending," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 42(2), pages 6-21, April.
    3. Vicki L. Bogan, 2015. "Household Asset Allocation, Offspring Education, and the Sandwich Generation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 611-615, May.
    4. Gene Amromin & Leslie McGranahan, 2015. "The Great Recession and Credit Trends across Income Groups," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 147-153, May.
    5. M. Keith Chen, 2011. "The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1820, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Dec 2012.
    6. M. Keith Chen, 2013. "The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 690-731, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sperlich, Stefan & Uriarte Ayo, José Ramón, 2014. "The Economics of "Why is it so hard to save a threatened Language?"," IKERLANAK info:eu-repo/grantAgreeme, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    2. Angerer, Silvia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Lergetporer, Philipp & Sutter, Matthias, 2015. "Donations, risk attitudes and time preferences: A study on altruism in primary school children," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 67-74.
    3. Adrian Chadi & Matthias Krapf, 2017. "The Protestant Fiscal Ethic: Religious Confession And Euro Skepticism In Germany," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1813-1832, October.
    4. Oded Galor & Ömer Özak, 2016. "The Agricultural Origins of Time Preference," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 3064-3103, October.
    5. Falk, A. & Becker, A. & Dohmen, T.J. & Enke, B. & Huffman, D. & Sunde, U., 2015. "The nature and predictive power of preferences: Global evidence," Research Memorandum 039, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    6. Cahit Guven & Asadul Islam, 2015. "Age at Migration, Language Proficiency, and Socioeconomic Outcomes: Evidence From Australia," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 513-542, April.
    7. Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Ugo Troiano, 2012. "Social capital, government expenditures, and growth," Economics Working Papers 1307, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2024.
    8. Matthias Sutter & Silvia Angerer & Daniela Rützler & Philipp Lergetporer, 2015. "The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Experimental Evidence from Children's Intertemporal Choices," CESifo Working Paper Series 5532, CESifo.
    9. Liang, H. & Marquis, C. & Renneboog, L.D.R. & Li Sun, Sunny, 2014. "Speaking of Corporate Social Responsibility," Other publications TiSEM 92732b13-3daf-45d1-99a1-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Thomas T. Hills & Eugenio Proto & Daniel Sgroi & Chanuki Illushka Seresinhe, 2019. "Historical analysis of national subjective wellbeing using millions of digitized books," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(12), pages 1271-1275, December.
    11. Dominique Cappelletti & Luigi Mittone & Matteo Ploner, 2015. "Language and intergroup discrimination. Evidence from an experiment," CEEL Working Papers 1504, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    12. Jha, Chandan Kumar & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2018. "Women and corruption: What positions must they hold to make a difference?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 219-233.
    13. Cecilia Boggio & Elsa Fornero & Henriette Prast & Jose Sanders, 2014. "Seven Ways to Knit Your Portfolio: Is Investor Communication Neutral?," CeRP Working Papers 140, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
    14. Rotunno, Lorenzo & Vézina, Pierre-Louis & Wang, Zheng, 2013. "The rise and fall of (Chinese) African apparel exports," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 152-163.
    15. Mancino, Maria Antonella & Navarro, Salvador & Rivers, David A., 2016. "Separating state dependence, experience, and heterogeneity in a model of youth crime and education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 274-305.
    16. Pawel Bukowski, 2015. "What Determines The Long-Run Persistence of the Empires? The Effect of the Partition of Poland on Education," CEU Working Papers 2015_3, Department of Economics, Central European University.
    17. Hübner, Malte & Vannoorenberghe, Gonzague, 2015. "Patience and long-run growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 163-167.
    18. Klaus Jaffe & Astrid Flórez & Marcos Manzanares & Rodolfo Jaffe & Cristina Gomes & Daniel Rodríguez & Carla Achury, 2015. "On the bioeconomics of shame and guilt," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 137-149, July.
    19. Vasiliki Fouka & Joachim Voth, 2012. "Reprisals remembered: German-Greek conflict and car sales during the Euro crisis," Economics Working Papers 1394, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2013.
    20. van der Velde, Lucas & Tyrowicz, Joanna & Siwinska, Joanna, 2015. "Language and (the estimates of) the gender wage gap," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 165-170.

    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:pal:buseco:v:52:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1057_s11369-017-0020-x. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    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.