title: How does dementia onset in parents influence unmarried adult children's wealth.
abstract: There is a growing concern that long-term care (LTC) needs of older adults lead to negative financial consequences for their family members. This paper examines whether the onset of dementia in parents influences wealth change among unmarried adult children regardless of their status as informal caregivers. Longitudinal data from seven waves (1998-2010) of the Health and Retirement Study (1540 person-wave observations) are used to analyze this question. Unconditional quantile regressions demonstrate that as a result of parental dementia diagnosis, unmarried adult children have lower wealth accumulation above the median of the wealth change distribution. These effects are more pronounced for unmarried adult children without siblings. Further, this response is observed to persist in the subsequent period as well. Both losses in labor income and nursing home expenditures may play a role in leading to wealth declines.
authors: Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Iowa, N220, College of Public Health, 145 N. Riverside Drive, Iowa City, 52242-2007, United States. Electronic address: kanika-arora@uiowa.edu.
authors: Kanika
authors: K
authors: Arora
mesh_terms: D032721:Adult Children / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000368:Aged; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003704:Dementia; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012044:Regression Analysis; D035781:Siblings; D012847:Single Person; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States
keywords: Adult children; Dementia; Household wealth; Older adults; United States