Racial, Ethnic and Gender Retirement Knowledge Gaps in the United States

37 Pages Posted: 27 Dec 2022

See all articles by Luisa R. Blanco

Luisa R. Blanco

Pepperdine University School of Public Policy

Ron D. Hays

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - David Geffen School of Medicine

Date Written: December 16, 2022

Abstract

The Retirement Knowledge Scale (RKS) assesses three dimensions of financial planning for retirement: reflection about retirement plans, engagement with information on retirement preparedness, and evaluation of retirement preparedness. We provide preliminary evidence about the reliability and validity of the RKS and compare retirement knowledge by race, ethnicity and gender in a sample of 1351 adults participating in the 2020 Health and Retirement Study experimental module. Men score more favorably than women on the RKS by 0.23 of a standard deviation. We also find that Whites report greater RKS than Blacks and Hispanics of 0.35 and 0.64 of a standard deviation, respectively. When looking at the intersection of race, ethnicity and gender, while White women score higher than Black and Hispanic women by 0.27 and 0.47 of standard deviation, White men score higher than Black and Hispanic men in the RKS by 0.54 and 0.87 of a standard deviation.

Keywords: racial disparities, gender disparities, retirement preparedness, financial knowledge

JEL Classification: G53, J26, J16, Z13

Suggested Citation

Blanco, Luisa R. and Hays, Ron D., Racial, Ethnic and Gender Retirement Knowledge Gaps in the United States (December 16, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4305160 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4305160

Luisa R. Blanco (Contact Author)

Pepperdine University School of Public Policy ( email )

24255 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, CA 90263
United States

Ron D. Hays

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - David Geffen School of Medicine ( email )

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
140
Abstract Views
820
Rank
372,989
PlumX Metrics