Mortality, Family and Lifestyles

Journal article: While there is a large empirical literature on the intergenerational transmission of health and survival outcomes in relation to lifestyles, little theoretical work exists on the long-run prevalence of (un)healthy lifestyles induced by mortality patterns. To examine that issue, this paper develops an overlapping generations model where a healthy lifestyle and an unhealthy lifestyle are transmitted vertically or obliquely across generations. It is shown that there must exist a locally stable heterogeneous equilibrium involving a majority of healthy agents, as a result of the larger parental gains from socialization efforts under a higher life expectancy. We also examine the robustness of our results to the introduction of parental altruistic concerns for children's health and of asymmetric socialization costs.

Author(s)

Grégory Ponthière

Journal
  • Journal of Family and Economic Issues
Date of publication
  • 2011
Keywords JEL
I12 J11 J13 Z13
Keywords
  • Altruism
  • Family
  • Lifestyle
  • Longevity
  • Socialization
Pages
  • 175-190
Version
  • 1
Volume
  • 32