AN INTERGENERATIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF FINANCE AND HEALTH

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1014610
• Project Start Date: Nov 1, 2017
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2022
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
2001 S. Lincoln Ave.
URBANA,IL 61801

Performing Department
Agricultural & Consumer Economics

Non Technical Summary
There have been many studies that document the correlation between finance and health: financial capability and financial management can lead to differences in financial resources, which affect healthcare and health behavior; meanwhile, health determines how much human capital can be invested in the production of financial capital. However, less attention has been paid to the intergenerational correlation of finance and health. For instance, parents' financial status can affect children's health development and therefore their financial outcomes in adulthood. At the same time, parents' physical and mental health can affect children's development of financial capability and long-term wellbeing in terms of health and financial success. Such intergenerational correlations could work through both genetic and environmental pathways. The intergenerational transmission of human capital of financial capability and health also results in different degrees of social mobility.The long-term goal of this project is to improve social mobility and to enhance financial and health wellbeing. Specifically, theresearch agenda for thisproject is to study the intergenerational transmission of financial wellbeing and health and to investigate the genetic and environmental influences on finance and health. The study will employ both an intergenerational approach and a behavior genetic method to study the interplay of finance and health and the role of genes and environments. This project is expected to result in a greater understanding of social mobility in terms of how the human capital of financial capability and health is transmitted across generations in a family. This project is important for its potential contribution to the field of family and consumer economics. The findings will provide a foundation for developing, implementing, and evaluating initiatives of educational and behavioral interventions to improve finance and health. The research outputs are expected to inform stakeholders of the dynamics of intergenerational transmission of finance and health. Policy interventions may be formulated accordingly to improve social mobility.

Animal Health Component

50%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

50%

Applied

50%

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
801	6020	3010	80%
801	6020	3070	20%

Knowledge Area
801 - Individual and Family Resource Management;

Subject Of Investigation
6020 - The family and its members;

Field Of Science
3070 - Psychology; 3010 - Economics;

Keywords

social mobility

financial health

inter-generational wealth

economic status

financial decision making

personality traits

Goals / Objectives
Goal One: Establishing the intergenerational correlations between finance and health and quantifying the causality between parents' status and children's status.Goal Two: Measuring genetic and environmental influences on financial behavior, health, and social mobility.Goal Three: Measuring the shared genetic factors that influence both finance and health.Goal Four: Measuring genetic and environmental influences on the intergenerational correlation between finance and health.

Project Methods
The project will employ interdisciplinary research methods drawn from economics, psychology, and public health. To achieve Goal One, the project will take dynamics and intergenerational approaches to examine financial and health behaviors over the lifespan and across generations, taking advantage of longitudinal data that account for parent-child information (e.g., Add Health, HRS, NLSY, PSID). The project will use econometric methods to identify causalities between financial wellness and health and between parents' and children's status. To achieve Goals Two, Three, and Fourthe project will employ a behavioral genetic approach commonly used in psychology. The genetic influences can be identified from the variations in genetic relatedness across different sibling types: the identical (monozygotic, "MZ") twins share 100%, the fraternal (dizygotic, "DZ") twins and full siblings ("FS") only share 50%, and the half siblings ("HS") share 25% segregating genetic material. The environmental effects resulting from family background and shared experiences can be identified from between-family variations, and the effects of environments unique to an individual can be identified from within-family variations.We will use data from HRS, PSID, and Add Health for the study. No genetic information other than twin zygosity provided by Add Health will be used for the study. All confidential use of the data has been approved by the University of Illinois Board of Institutional Review (IRB) and deemed as no more than minimum risk. The following is the IRB information:HRS: IRB Protocol Number: 16595, expiration date: 4/25/2020.PSID: IRB Protocol Number: 16335 , expiration date: 11/8/2017 (renewal submitted for review on 10/10/2017).Add Health: IRB Protocol Number: 13911, expiration date: 3/7/2018. Note thatthese approvals are for data analysis only and not for gathering data from human subjects.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period, my research has been disseminated among both researchers and practitioners in the family and consumer science community through multiple conference presentations. My research findings have been transmitted to the domestic and international audience through multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals, social media, NC-2172 website, and my website. Under my leadership as the chair of NC-2172, the outreach website of NC-2172 was officially launched this year to disseminate the group's research results. The production of outreach materials, including blogs, podcasts, and Infograms, will be integrated as part of the research process of the group. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Sebastien Box-Couillard and Julian Diaz, Ph.D. students at the Department of ACE at the University of Illinois, were hired during the reporting period to support my research projects. While they were assisting the data analysis, literature review, and manuscript preparation, they were trained to be independent researchers. Hyeran Chung, Ph.D. studentat the Department of ACE at the University of Illinois, is a student co-author of a paper of this project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I have devoted myself to disseminating and communicating my research findings to both domestic and international audiences as well as those inside and outside of the field of family and consumer science and household finance. My research has been presented to the family and economic research communities and thedomestic and international audience through multiple publications in peer-reviewed journals, social media, NC 2172 website, and my website.. Due to the interruption of COVID-19, conference presentations are more limited and available ones are virtual. My student co-author Hyeran Chung and I presented "Maternal Health and Time Investments in Children" at the American Council on Consumer Interests (ACCI) virtual conference in May. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I expect to submit multiple manuscripts out of my current research portfolio and follow through with the publication process for my work under review. This year, I finished my three-year term as the chair of NC-2172, a Multistate research group partially supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and consisting of land-grant university researchers. Our current five-year project focuses on behavioral economics across the life cycle, focusing on the intercept of financial and health wellbeing. We have established partnerships and collaborations with external stakeholders. Several viable projects on health and finance are underway.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? So far, I have developed a research portfolio on the intergenerational perspective of the interaction between health and finance. The first paper finds that parental home foreclosure is correlated with lower homeownership of their children compared to their peers who do not experience a parental foreclosure. The paper was published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues in January. The second project establishes the correlation between parental income and children's adult obesity and obesity-related health conditions. In particular, we differentiate the contributing features of prolonged and transitory material hardship to adulthood weight and health. Our findings show that parental permanent income is negatively associated with obesity and adverse health outcomes in adulthood. We also detected negative associations between transitory income peak in adolescence and adverse weight and health outcomes. Our results imply that reinforcement of policies that aim to improve the permanent income of parents is more likely to generate healthier children in their adulthood. The paper is currently under review. My third project studies the effect of maternal health conditions, in particular, cancer and mental problems, on their time investment on their children and thecognitive and noncognitive abilities of children. We have finished the data analysis and are working on a manuscript to be submitted by early 2021. The unexpected event of the COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to study the health and finance during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have two research projects under this theme. The first project (under submission) examines households' financial vulnerability during the pandemic. We provide a ranking of various household groups by their financial vulnerability and the first estimate of the number of households at various degrees of financial vulnerability. Our findings shed light on to whom and in what form the U.S. government should direct their financial resources during the pandemic. The paper is timely and will be of interest to a wide readership, including researchers interested in household finance and financial planning and policymakers. The second project studies consumers' online shopping decisions during the pandemic (in progress). We design a survey and collect the data through the RAND American Life Panel Omnibus Survey in October. We have gathered information about online shopping behavior from 2,310 respondents. The analysis is underway.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Xu, Y. 2020. Foreclosed American dream? Parental foreclosure and young adult children's homeownership. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 41, 458471.

Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period, my research has been disseminated among both researchers and practitioners in the family and consumer science community through multiple conference presentations. Moreover, my research findings have been transmitted to domestic and international audiences through multiple publications. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Hyeran Chung and Sebastien Box-Couillard, Ph.D. students in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois, were hired during the reporting period to support my research projects. While they were assisting in the data analysis, literature review, and manuscript preparation, they were also trained to be independent researchers. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I have devoted myself to disseminating and communicating my research findings to both domestic and international audiences as well as those inside and outside of the field of family and consumer science and household finance. My research has been presented to a broad audience including researchers and practitioners of the ACCI, CFP, NARSC, and AFCPE communities. Follow is a list of presentations of my work during the reporting period. Kiss, D.E., Xu, Y., Saboe-Wounded Head, L, Gutter, M. and O'Neill, B. Retirement planning recommendations from a systematic analysis of financial planning journals. 2019 CFP Board Academic Research Colloquium, Arlington, VA, February 2019. Xu, Y. and Yilmazer, T. Childhood socioeconomic status and adulthood obesity and health: The role of permanent and transitory income. 2019 CFP Board Academic Research Colloquium, Arlington, VA, February 2019. Kiss, D.E., Xu, Y., Saboe-Wounded Head, L, Gutter, M. and O'Neill, B. Insights from a systematic review of retirement planning recommendations. American Council on Consumer Interests (ACCI), Arlington, VA, May 2019. Xu, Y. and Yilmazer, T. Childhood socioeconomic status and adulthood obesity and health: The role of permanent and transitory income. 2019 North American Regional Science Council (NARSC) meetings, Pittsburgh, PA, November 2019. Johnson, C., Bowen, C., O'Neill, B., Kiss, E., Gutter, M. and Xu, Y. Research to practice: Translational efforts of a multi-state research team. 2019 Proceedings of Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education (AFCPE) Research and Training Symposium, Portland, OR, November 2019. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?To establish the intergenerational correlations between finance and health and quantifying the causality between parent's status and children's status, I have started a project that investigates how parental adverse health events affect children's human capital investment. Meanwhile, I am exploring social media data such as Twitter tweets to study the intercept of health and finance. I expect to submit multiple manuscripts out of my current research portfolio and follow through with the publication process for my work under review.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Since 2018, I started serving as the chair of NC-2172, a Multistate research group partially supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and consisting of land-grant university researchers. We have started our new five-year project on behavioral economics across the life cycle, focusing on the intercept of financial and health wellbeing. We have established partnerships and collaborations with external stakeholders. This year, we are building our website for outreach and education. Under my coordination as the Chair, the Department of ACE at the University of Illinois is hosting the 2019 NC-2172 Annual Meeting at the Illini Center in Chicago during June 5-6, 2019. Under my leadership, the group is establishing an outreach website to disseminate the group's research results. The production of outreach materials, including blogs, podcasts, and infograms, will be integrated as part of the research process of the group. The first batch of blog, podcast, and infograms have been prepared for publication on the website out of the group's most recent publication: "As Soon As..." Finances: A Study of Financial Decision-Making. Our outreach efforts and experiences have been shared at a symposium presentation at the 2019 AFCPE Research and Training Symposium titled: Research to Practice: Translational Efforts of a Multi-State Research Team. During the reporting period, I have published two papers and followed through my preexisting projects that investigated the finance and health nexus. My earlier publication titled: Homeownership Among Millennials: The Deferred American Dream was listed among the Top Ten most downloaded articles of FCSRJ during 2018 with a total of 610 downloads. My coauthors and I have been working on processing the outputs from organized symposium discussions of the intersection between health and financial wellbeing at the 2018 FERMA conference and the National Health Outreach Conference. I have completed a paper from the project that studies the impact of parental family income in early-life stages on adult obesity. The paper was presented at the 2019 CFP Colloquium and the 2019 NARSC conference.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: O'Neill, Xu, Y., Johnson, C.L., Kiss, D.E. and Buyske, S. 2019. "As Soon As..." Finances: A Study of Financial Decision-Making. Journal of Personal Finance, 18 (1), 37-54.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Kiss, D.E., Bartholomae, S., Johnson, C.L., O'Neill, Xu, Y. and Gutter, M. 2018. Conceptualizing Health and Financial Wellness: Using Facilitated Discussion to Collect Input From Professionals. Forum for Family and Consumer Issues, 22(1), 1-14.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2019 Citation: Xu, Y. and Yao., R. 2019. Financial Decision Power and Household Wealth Accumulation: The Role of Personality and Cognitive Ability.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2019 Citation: Xu, Y. 2018. Foreclosed American Dream: Does Parental Foreclosure Effect Young Adults' Housing Decision? Revised and Resubmitted.

Progress 11/01/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:During this reporting period, my research has been disseminated among both researchers and practitioners in the family and consumer science community through multiple conference presentations.Moreover, my research findings have been transmitted todomestic and international audiences through multiple publications in top field journals. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Minhong Xu and Hyeran Chung, Ph.D. students at the Department of ACE at the University of Illinois, were hired during the reporting period to support my research projects. While they were assisting the data analysis, literature review, manuscript preparation, they were trained to be independent researchers. Ms. Xu graudated in spring 2018 and became an assistant professor of economics in Nanjing Audit University, China. Ms. Chung is working on her PhD disseration. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?I have devoted myself to disseminating and communicating my research findings to both domestic and international audiences as well as those inside and outside of the field of family and consumer science and household finance.My research has been presented to a broad audience including researchers and practitioners of the ACCI, CFP, and FERMA communities. Follow is a list of presentations of my work during the reporting period: Xu, Y. and Yao, R., "Financial Decision Power and Household Financial Wellbeing: The Role of Personality and Cognitive Ability." 2018 Academic Research Colloquium for Financial Planning and Related Disciplines, Arlington, VA, February 2018. Xu, Y. and Yao, R.,"Financial Decision Power and Household Financial Wellbeing: The Role of Personality and Cognitive Ability." 2018 ACCI Annual Conference, Clearwater Beach, FL, May 2018. Bartholomae, B., Xu, Y., Kiss, E.B., O'Neill, B., Gutter, M. and Evans, D. "Financial Distress and Delayed Healthcare." 2018 ACCI Conference, Clearwater Beach, FL, May 2018. Kiss, D.E., Bartholomae, S., Johnson, C.L., O'Neill, Xu, Y. and Gutter, M. "Discussing the Intersections of Health and Financial Wellness." National Health Outreach Conference,Bloomington, Minnesota, May 2018. Kiss, D.E., Bartholomae, S., Johnson, C.L., O'Neill, Xu, Y. and Gutter, M. "Discussing the Intersections of Health and Financial Wellness."2018 Biennial Family Economics Resource Management AssociationConference.Clearwater Beach, FL, May 2018. Xu, Y., Briley, D. and Ksiazkiewicz, A. "The Genetic and Environmental Influences on Social Mobility." Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois, November, 2018. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I expect to have submitted at least three manuscripts out of my current research portfolio by the end of the next reporting period, and I will be following through the publication process for my work under review.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During the reporting period, I started two projects that investigate the finance and health nexus. My coauthors and I organized symposium discussions of the intercept between health and financial wellbeing at the FERMA conference and the National Health Outreach Conference. We reported the research design of the symposium discussions in Kiss et al (2018), which was resubmitted to Forum for Family and Consumer Issues. We are currently working on processing the outputs from the discussions and writing an analytical paper. In a related paper, Bartholomae et al. (2018) examines households' financial allocation between paying bills and paying for medical needs when they face a financial shock. The purpose is to investigate whether households reduce prescriptions or skip doctor visits when they are financially distressed. I also started several projects to study the genetic and environmental mechnisms of finance and health. Xu and Yilmazer (2018) studies the impact of parental family income in early-life stages on adult obesity. The paper has been accepted to the 2019 CFP Colloquium for a presentation. Using biologically informative sibling data from the Add Health, Xu, Briley, Ksiazkiewicz (2018) quantifies the genetic and environmental effects in socioeconomic status attainment and inter- and intra-generational mobility. The paper has been accepted to the 2018 International Symposium on Contemporary Labor Economics for a presentation. In a related study, Xu and Fan (2018) examines how the relationships between eating habits, physical activity, food and physical environments, and obesity. The goal is to understand whether and how environments affect the genetic expression of obesity and how genes affect susceptibility to the obesogenic environments. The genetic behavioral approach applied in these two projects bridged the behavioral genetics approach used in psychology with economic analysis of human behaviors, and hence open a new horizon for research in psychology, economics, and health.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: ONeill, B., Xu, Y., Johnson, C. and Kiss, D.E. 2018. Twitter Chat as A Research Tool: A Study on the Financial Decisions of Young Adults. Journal of Human Sciences and Extension. 6(1), 89-97.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Xu, Y. and Fan, L. 2018. Diverse Friendship Networks and Heterogeneous Peer Effects on Adolescent Misbehaviors. Education Economics. 26(3), 233-252.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2018 Citation: Xu, M., and Xu, Y. 2017. Environmental Hazards and Mortgage Credit Risk: Evidence from Texas Pipeline Incidents. Real Estate Economics (In Press). http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1540-6229.12213.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Accepted Year Published: 2018 Citation: O'Neill, Xu, Y., Johnson, C.L., Kiss, D.E. and Buyske, S. 2018. As Soon As& Finances: A Study of Financial Decision-Making. Journal of Personal Finance (In Press).
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2018 Citation: Xu, Y. and Yao, R. 2018. Financial Decision Power and Household Financial Wellbeing: The Role of Personality and Cognitive Ability (Under Review). Journal of Family and Economic Issues. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3034007.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2018 Citation: Kiss, D.E., Bartholomae, S., Johnson, C.L., ONeill, Xu, Y. and Gutter, M. 2018. Discussing the Intersections of Health and Financial Wellness (Under Review). Forum for Family and Consumer Issues.