International Journal of Human Ecology

The Korean Home Economics Association (대한가정학회)
권호 표지

Employment Instability and Security Funds in U.S. Households

  • Published : 2003.12.01
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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of employment related factors on household savings for precautionary purposes when controlling for financial security and to compare the results between the two different economic periods. A conceptual framework was developed based on the precautionary saving theory, the family stress theory, and previous empirical studies. As a self-insurance, a measure of security funds were developed and used as the dependent variable. Using data on working households in the 1992 and the 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), a MLE estimation was conducted on the pooled data. The 1992 and 1998 data were used to reflect periods of economic recession and expansion, respectively. The results suggested that factors representing resources played the most significant role in determining the amount of security funds. Some of the employment related factors, preferences, financial security, and race were also significantly affected the amount of security funds. The results suggested that stable employment conditions were important for households to accumulate security funds. Households with more human resources and financial resources had a larger amount of security funds than those that had less human and financial resources. From the findings, implications for research, policies, and financial educators had been suggested.

Keywords

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