The wealth and poverty of widows: Assets before and after the husband's death

The elderly have experienced substantial absolute and relative gains in real income in the past fifteen years.1 But while the financial status of the average elderly person has improved, many are still in poverty; in particular, single older persons are often poor. Because of measurement error and variation in yearly income, there is considerable movement into and out of poverty from year to year.2 But even if one adjusts for the difference between permanent poverty and transitory poverty, the high incidence of poverty among the single elderly is a cause for social concern. While some work has been done on the events surrounding the transition of the elderly into poverty,3 our knowledge of the course of income and wealth as the elderly age is limited. We first document in this paper the income and wealth status of the elderly, showing that widows and other single elderly are much more likely to be poor than those who are married. Then we seek to explain why the single elderly are poor, with emphasis on widows. We do thi