How financial decision-making changes when a marriage ends : evidence from the 1992-2016 health and retirement study
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Transitioning from being married to divorced or widowed is difficult, financially as well as emotionally. Individuals who had left money matters to their partners during marriage enter a period of decreased financial control after marital dissolution and need to build their capacity to manage their own finances. This research used the 1992-2016 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to investigate the following questions: Compared to a marriage's financial decision maker, how does the non-decision maker assume financial control post-marriage and change asset allocation and wealth accumulation over time? Who loses out by remaining uninvolved in a marriage's financial decision-making? Descriptive analyses and a linear mixed regression model were used to explore whether, after becoming divorced or widowed, net worth is higher for financial decision makers than non-decision makers. A similar analysis was performed on the proportions of risky assets held in investment portfolios, examining whether proportions are higher for the decision makers. The results showed that divorce and widowhood were detrimental to financial health no matter a person's attributes. However, impacts disproportionately affected some groups, including respondents who were non-financial decision makers during marriage. Gender, race, and level of education also influenced how much marital dissolution impacted post-marriage asset allocation and wealth accumulation. The findings suggest that individual investors, financial planners, and researchers would benefit from figuring out how to design collaborative, responsive financial plans that enhance typically uninvolved persons' decision-making skills and adapt to life changes.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. Copyright held by author.