ArticlePublisher preview available

Wealth inequalities among seniors: the role of marital histories across cohorts

Authors:
Carole Bonnet
Carole Bonnet
Carole Bonnet
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Enrica Maria Martino at Collegio Carlo Alberto
Enrica Maria Martino
Benoît Rapoport
Benoît Rapoport
Benoît Rapoport
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Anne Solaz at National Institute for Demographic Studies
Anne Solaz
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract and Figures

Wealth accumulation is the result of several factors: saving behaviors, inheritance, work and marital histories. In a context of increasing diversity of marital histories over cohorts, this article examines how relationship history may shape long-term wealth accumulation and wealth inequality. It goes beyond household wealth by looking at individual wealth. Focusing on individuals above 50 and using data from cross-sectional wealth surveys conducted in France in 2004, 2009, and 2014, we evaluate the contribution of their marital histories to individual wealth across different birth cohorts of men and women. We document the existence of a couple wealth premium, observed for both married and unmarried partners who are wealthier than the divorced, separated, or always single. Accumulated wealth significantly depends on marital history. Women have smaller wealth when they have not been continuously in a relationship. This is also the case for men but only for those belonging to the lowest quantiles. Over birth cohorts, marital break-up is responsible for less accumulated wealth. This is mainly noticeable for cohorts born after WWII. If marital histories had not diversified, the wealth accumulated by women would have been greater at older ages and those of men would have been more evenly distributed.
Figures - available from: Review of Economics of the Household
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
A preview of this full-text is provided by Springer Nature.
Learn more
Content available from Review of Economics of the Household
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Rev Econ Household (2023) 21:815–853
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-022-09633-7
Wealth inequalities among seniors: the role of marital
histories across cohorts
Carole Bonnet1●Enrica Maria Martino1,2 ●Benoît Rapoport1,3 ●Anne Solaz 1
Received: 6 April 2021 / Accepted: 15 November 2022 / Published online: 9 December 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
2022
Abstract
Wealth accumulation is the result of several factors: saving behaviors, inheritance,
work and marital histories. In a context of increasing diversity of marital histories
over cohorts, this article examines how relationship history may shape long-term
wealth accumulation and wealth inequality. It goes beyond household wealth by
looking at individual wealth. Focusing on individuals above 50 and using data from
cross-sectional wealth surveys conducted in France in 2004, 2009, and 2014, we
evaluate the contribution of their marital histories to individual wealth across
different birth cohorts of men and women. We document the existence of a couple
wealth premium, observed for both married and unmarried partners who are
wealthier than the divorced, separated, or always single. Accumulated wealth
significantly depends on marital history. Women have smaller wealth when they have
not been continuously in a relationship. This is also the case for men but only for
those belonging to the lowest quantiles. Over birth cohorts, marital break-up is
responsible for less accumulated wealth. This is mainly noticeable for cohorts born
after WWII. If marital histories had not diversified, the wealth accumulated by
women would have been greater at older ages and those of men would have been
more evenly distributed.
Keywords Marital histories ●Wealth ●Inequality ●Gender ●Divorce ●Cohort
JEL Codes D31 ●J12 ●J16
*Anne Solaz
solaz@ined.fr
1
INED, Institut national d’études démographiques, Aubervilliers, France
2
CHILD (Collegio Carlo Alberto), Turin, Italy
3
Université Paris I, Paris, France
1234567890();,:
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... Beyond income, it is also relevant to consider how family transitions such as entering a cohabitation are linked to women's and men's wealth because wealth and income reflect different aspects of economic well-being and are only weakly correlated (Killewald, Pfeffer, and Schachner 2017). While several studies have shown that marriage is linked to substantial wealth premiums for women and men (Lersch 2017;Kapelle and Lersch 2020;Kapelle and Vidal 2022;Lee 2022;Niimi 2022;Bonnet et al. 2023), it remains unclear whether cohabitation is related to similar wealth premiums. Evidence on the existence and the size of the cohabitation wealth premium is crucial in understanding how demographic shifts towards more cohabitation shape social stratification in the wealth dimension. ...
A cohabitation wealth premium for women and men: Considering the regulatory framework and normative acceptance in France and Germany
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2025
  • Soc Econ Rev
We examine the association between cohabitation and women's and men's wealth, closely considering the distinct regulatory and normative contexts in France and Eastern and Western Germany. Using longitudinal data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (2002-2017) and the French wealth survey Histoire de Vie et Patrimoine (2014/15-2020/21), we apply fixed-effects regression models to examine potential wealth advantages associated with cohabitation, including the relevance of gender and contextual differences. We find that cohabitation is positively associated with women's and men's wealth across contexts, without meaningful gender differences. For France, entering a Pacs (i.e. registered cohabitation) is associated with an additional premium beyond the (unregistered) cohabitation premium-though these effects may not be causal. Overall, our results suggest that the regulatory treatment of cohabitation plays a more significant role in shaping the wealth accumulation of cohabiting women and men than normative acceptance, while gender has little impact on the associated benefits.
View
... In particular, the gaps resulting from women's past work interruptions are not accounted for. In future studies, it will be important to track respondents' income and employment histories, as well as marital histories, as did Bonnet et al. (2022), to estimate with more precision what part of the gender wealth gap is explained by income disparities and what part remains unexplained. ...
The Gender Wealth Gap in Québec
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2023
  • Can Stud Popul
Private wealth is becoming increasingly important in planning for retirement and protecting against life risks; however, limited research has addressed the gender wealth gap in Canada. This gap remains largely unexplored because of the collection of wealth data at the household level in existing surveys within the country, which obscures disparities within couples. To overcome this limitation, this article uses new personal wealth data from an original survey conducted in 2022 in the province of Québec (N: 4816). The analyses were performed using quantile regression and decomposition at the 70th, 80th, and 90th quantiles. The results reveal significant wealth inequalities favoring men that appear even more pronounced among partnered adults than those who are unpartnered. The gender wealth gap is partly explained by differences in income and ownership of real estate other than the principal residence between men and women. However, a substantial portion of this gap remains unexplained. These findings highlight the need to collect wealth data at both household and individual levels in Canada to better understand gender-based economic disparities. They also call for more research on the processes underpinning the gender wealth gap by suggesting that it does not simply reflect the wage gap between men and women.
View
... It is now well established that marriage is an important determinant of wealth: Continuously married men and women are wealthier than never-married people or those with a disrupted marital life (Wilmoth & Koso, 2002;Zagorsky, 2005;Bonnet et al., 2022;Nutz, 2022). In terms of marital and inheritance regimes, the legal frameworks of marriage shape within-household wealth distribution and gendered patterns of wealth ownership (Deere & Doss, 2006). ...
Wealth Accumulation and the Gender Wealth Gap Across Couples’ Legal Statuses and Matrimonial Property Regimes in France
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2022
  • EUR J POPUL
This paper examines wealth accumulation among couple-headed households and investigates changes in within-household inequality over time and across couple statuses. Going beyond previous research that mostly studies wealth accumulation within marriages by comparing married with unmarried individuals, we consider the legal statuses of couples (cohabitation, civil union, and marriage) and property regimes (community and separate property). We apply multivariate regression analysis to high-quality longitudinal data from the French wealth survey (2015-2018) and find no differences in net worth accumulation between couples' legal statuses when property regimes are not accounted for. However, couples with a separate property regime accumulate more wealth than couples with a community property regime, and married couples with a separate property regime drive this association. Our results show that the gender wealth gap is larger for couples with a separate property regime, but it is partially compensated by accumulated wealth. Our results highlight the importance of legal statuses and property regimes in explaining the dynamics of between- and within-household inequality in France, specifically within a context of increasingly diversified marital trajectories. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-022-09632-5.
View
Association between Wealth and Mortality in the United States and Europe
Article
  • Apr 2025
  • NEW ENGL J MED
Background: Amid growing wealth disparity, we have little information on how health among older Americans compares with that among older Europeans across the distribution of wealth. Methods: We performed a longitudinal, retrospective cohort study involving adults 50 to 85 years of age who were included in the Health and Retirement Study and the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe between 2010 and 2022. Wealth quartiles were defined according to age group and country, with quartile 1 comprising the poorest participants and quartile 4 the wealthiest. Mortality and Kaplan-Meier curves were estimated for each wealth quartile across the United States and 16 countries in northern and western, southern, and eastern Europe. We used Cox proportional-hazards models that included adjustment for baseline covariates (age group, sex, marital status [ever or never married], educational level [any or no college education], residence [rural or nonrural], current smoking status [smoking or nonsmoking], and absence or presence of a previously diagnosed long-term condition) to quantify the association between wealth quartile and all-cause mortality from 2010 through 2022 (the primary outcome). Results: Among 73,838 adults (mean [±SD] age, 65±9.8 years), a total of 13,802 (18.7%) died during a median follow-up of 10 years. Across all participants, greater wealth was associated with lower mortality, with adjusted hazard ratios for death (quartile 2, 3, or 4 vs. quartile 1) of 0.80 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.76 to 0.83), 0.68 (95% CI, 0.65 to 0.71), and 0.60 (95% CI, 0.57 to 0.63), respectively. The gap in survival between the top and bottom wealth quartiles was wider in the United States than in Europe. Survival among the participants in the top wealth quartiles in northern and western Europe and southern Europe appeared to be higher than that among the wealthiest Americans. Survival in the wealthiest U.S. quartile appeared to be similar to that in the poorest quartile in northern and western Europe. Conclusions: In cohort studies conducted in the United States and Europe, greater wealth was associated with lower mortality, and the association between wealth and mortality appeared to be more pronounced in the United States than in Europe.
View
Wealth Accumulation and the Gender Wealth Gap Across Couples’ Legal Statuses and Matrimonial Property Regimes in France
Article
Full-text available
  • Aug 2022
  • EUR J POPUL
This paper examines wealth accumulation among couple-headed households and investigates changes in within-household inequality over time and across couple statuses. Going beyond previous research that mostly studies wealth accumulation within marriages by comparing married with unmarried individuals, we consider the legal statuses of couples (cohabitation, civil union, and marriage) and property regimes (community and separate property). We apply multivariate regression analysis to high-quality longitudinal data from the French wealth survey (2015-2018) and find no differences in net worth accumulation between couples' legal statuses when property regimes are not accounted for. However, couples with a separate property regime accumulate more wealth than couples with a community property regime, and married couples with a separate property regime drive this association. Our results show that the gender wealth gap is larger for couples with a separate property regime, but it is partially compensated by accumulated wealth. Our results highlight the importance of legal statuses and property regimes in explaining the dynamics of between- and within-household inequality in France, specifically within a context of increasingly diversified marital trajectories. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-022-09632-5.
View
Heterogeneity in Family Life Course Patterns and Intra-Cohort Wealth Disparities in Late Working Age
Article
Full-text available
  • Mar 2022
  • EUR J POPUL
Considering soaring wealth inequalities in older age, this research addresses the relationship between family life courses and widening wealth differences between individuals as they age. We holistically examine how childbearing and marital histories are associated with personal wealth at ages 50-59 for Western Germans born between 1943 and 1967. We propose that deviations from culturally and institutionally-supported family patterns, or the stratified access to them, associate with differential wealth accumulation over time and can explain wealth inequalities at older ages. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP, v34, waves 2002-2017), we first identified typical family trajectory patterns between ages 16 and 50 with multichannel sequence analysis and cluster analysis. We then modelled personal wealth ranks at ages 50-59 as a function of family patterns. Results showed that deviations from the standard family pattern (i.e. stable marriage with, on average, two children) were mostly associated with lower wealth ranks at older age, controlling for childhood characteristics that partly predict selection into family patterns and baseline wealth. We found higher wealth penalties for greater deviation and lower penalties for moderate deviation from the standard family pattern. Addressing entire family trajectories, our research extended and nuanced our knowledge of the role of earlier family behaviour for later economic wellbeing. By using personal-level rather than household-level wealth data, we were able to identify substantial gender differences in the study associations. Our research also recognised the importance of combining marital and childbearing histories to assess wealth inequalities. Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10680-021-09601-4.
View
Marital Dissolution and Personal Wealth: Examining Gendered Trends across the Dissolution Process
Article
Full-text available
Objective This study examined potentially gendered net worth changes over the marital dissolution process, starting up to 3 years prior to separation and continuing up to 15 years postdivorce. Background Incipient literature showed steep wealth declines for men and women associated with divorce, treating marital dissolution as a single point‐in‐time event. These findings may be limiting as legal regulations and divorce‐stress‐adjustment research conceptualize marital dissolution as a process that lasts several years. Method Using fixed effects regression models, we analyzed changes in personal net worth as well as changes in personal net housing worth and financial net worth of individuals whose marriages dissolved between 2002 and 2017. Analyses used comprehensive wealth data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel study. Results Although wealth declines commenced prior to separation, separation was the most critical point with 82% and 76% reductions in personal wealth of men and women, respectively. Divorce did not pose additional wealth penalties, but wealth was also not recovered in years after divorce. The lasting separation penalty was mainly driven by declines in housing wealth and a lack of financial wealth recovery. Overall, both men and women experienced dramatic relative wealth declines with negligible gender differences. Predicted wealth levels, however, indicated that men may be in a financially better position compared to women due to higher preseparation wealth levels. Conclusion Results illustrated important variations in personal wealth measures over the marital dissolution process, which may drive lasting wealth inequalities, particularly with regard to housing wealth for both men and women.
View
The Accumulation of Wealth in Marriage: Over-Time Change and Within-Couple Inequalities
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 2020
  • EUR SOCIOL REV
This study examines the accumulation of personal wealth of husbands and wives and investigates the development of within-couple wealth inequalities over time in marriage. Going beyond previous research that mostly studied the marriage wealth premium using household-level wealth data and that conceptualized marriage as an instantaneous transition with uniform consequences over time, we argue that entry into marriage is a gendered life-course event that dynamically shapes husbands' and wives' wealth accumulation. Using high-quality data from the German SocioEconomic Panel Study (2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017), we apply fixed-effects regression models to describe wealth accumulation within marriage. We find evidence that wealth premiums are lower during early years of marriage , but increase steadily thereafter. The premium is mostly concentrated in housing wealth. Results from supplementary analyses with limited data, however, suggest that the premium may not be causal for men. Regarding within-couple wealth inequalities, we find a pronounced within-couple wealth gap prior to marriage during premarital cohabitation. This gap remains stable over time in marriage. In contrast to findings regarding income, our study indicates that the institution of marriage may not amplify within-couple wealth inequalities further.
View
The Ant or the Grasshopper? The Long-term Consequences of Unilateral Divorce Laws on Savings of European Households
Article
Full-text available
  • Jul 2019
  • EUR ECON REV
Unilateral Divorce Laws (UDLs) allow people to obtain divorce without the consent of their spouse. Using the staggered introduction of UDLs across European countries, we show that households exposed to UDLs for a longer period of time accumulate more savings. This effect holds for both financial and total wealth and is stronger at higher quantiles of the wealth distribution. Consistent with a precautionary motive for savings, we also find that exposure to UDLs increases female labour supply, numeracy, trust in others and dispositional optimism.
View
Inequalities and the Individualization of Wealth
Research
Full-text available
  • May 2019
We investigate how households hold their assets and we analyze how changes in wealth ownership status contributed to the increase in wealth inequality in France, using detailed survey data over the 1998-2015 period. We find that the share of households' wealth held as individualized assets rose from 35% in 1998 to 51% in 2015. This increase is largely driven by the decision of couples to separate their assets and only partly driven by the rise in single-headed households. Estimations of the distribution of wealth in the population usually disregard the intra-household distribution of wealth. We show that they underestimate both the level and the increase in wealth inequality. Gender wealth inequality is particularly affected. We argue for a better consideration of the ownership status of wealth in the measurement of wealth inequality.
View
More frequent separation and repartnering among people aged 50 and over
Article
  • Feb 2021
In France, among individuals born in the 1930s, only 4% of men and only 5% of women lived in a union several times by age 50. Most have experienced only one cohabiting union, usually marriage, in their lifetime. Among those born 30 years later, in the 1960s, a quarter of both men and women have experienced more than two unions. Men are more likely to repartner than women at any age. These gender gaps widen with age. Men are a quarter more likely than women to form a new relationship at age 50, and 3 times more likely at age 73. Divorces among seniors are increasing.
View
Inequalities and the individualization of wealth
Article
  • Apr 2020
  • J PUBLIC ECON
We document the individualization of wealth in France between 1998 and 2015, using precise survey data on the property titles of assets. It is characterized by an increase in the share of wealth which is individualized by spouses (vs. jointly owned) and by an increase in the share of wealth held by singles. We show that the usual measures of wealth inequality, which allocate the same share of household wealth to each spouse or partner, overestimate the share of wealth held by women. This results in an underestimation of both the level and the growth of a) wealth inequality between individuals and b) the gender wealth gap. We argue for better consideration of the ownership status and intra-household distribution of wealth in the measurement of wealth inequality.
View
La première vie en couple : évolutions récentes
Article
  • Apr 2015
  • Popul Soc
L’enquête Étude des parcours individuels et conjugaux (Épic) (2013-2014) montre la poursuite des tendances observées ces dernières années en matière de vie de couple, ainsi que plusieurs changements. Le mariage continue à être de moins en moins systématique et de plus en plus tardif lorsqu’il a lieu. En revanche, l’âge à la première vie de couple cohabitant ne recule plus. Alors qu’autrefois les conjoints étaient souvent tous deux en emploi au moment de la première vie commune, aujourd’hui, l’homme est en emploi et la femme encore en études dans un cas sur quatre. Un quart des premières unions ont lieu par ailleurs avec un conjoint ayant déjà vécu en couple.
View
Gendered Wealth Losses after Dissolution of Cohabitation but not Marriage in Germany
Preprint
  • Sep 2019
Objective: To document gender differences in how economic wealth changes following the dissolution of marriage and cohabitation in Germany.Background: Wealth can be an important resource to deal with the adverse economic consequences of union dissolution. Marital property regimes usually ensure that both partners receive a share of the couples’ wealth following a divorce. The dissolution of cohabiting unions is not governed by such rules in most countries, including Germany, which may lead to a more unequal division of wealth following the dissolution of cohabitation as compared to marriage.Method: The analysis consists of multivariable fixed-effects regression models based on longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (N = 6,388 individuals) for the years 2002 to 2017.Results: Changes in wealth are relatively similar for men and women after the dissolution of marriage. The dissolution of cohabiting unions is related to losses in wealth for women, but not for men. Controlling for post-dissolution processes, gender inequality increases after the dissolution of cohabitations.Conclusion: Union dissolution is associated with wealth losses. The legal protection of the economically weaker spouse in marriage prevents gender inequality in these wealth losses. Lacking such legal protection, cohabitation is associated with gender inequality in the consequences of dissolution.
View