Understanding the Financial Knowledge Gap: A New Dimension of Inequality in Later Life.

To understand individuals' financial behaviors, it is important to understand the financial knowledge gap - the distance between one's objective and subjective financial knowledge. Overestimating one's financial knowledge can lead to risky financial behaviors. To date, limited empirical work has examined how financial knowledge gap varies across age groups. We analyze the size and nature of the financial knowledge gap and its variation across age groups. Using nationally representative data, we find robust evidence that older adults overestimate their financial knowledge. Social workers can assess the financial knowledge gap and educate their clients to protect from financial fraud, exploitation, and abuse.

Income trajectories of families raising a child with a neurodisability.

PURPOSE: To examine household income trajectories of children with and without neurodisability over a period of 6 years. METHOD: We used four cycles of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, a longitudinal study of the development and well-being of Canadian children from birth into adulthood. RESULTS: While household income increased over time for both groups, families of children with neurodisability had consistently lower household income compared to families of children without neurodisability even after controlling for child and family socio-demographic characteristics. The presence of an interaction effect between parent work status and child with neurodisability at baseline indicated that among children whose parent(s) were not working at baseline, household incomes did not differ between children with and without neurodisability. CONCLUSIONS: The association between child with neurodisability and lower household income may not hold for all types of parents', working status is an important consideration.Implications for RehabilitationFindings support the health selection hypothesis that health status shapes diverging economic conditions over time: children with a ND have lower household incomes than children without a ND child across all waves of the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.Income gaps did not increase or decrease over time; rehabilitation services and policies must consider the lower average incomes associated with raising a child with a ND.Social assistance support likely plays a key role in closing the gap, especially for non-working families.

Savings ownership and the use of maternal health services in Indonesia.

In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), many women of reproductive age experience morbidity and mortality attributable to inadequate access to and use of health services. Access to personal savings has been identified as a potential instrument for empowering women and improving access to and use of health services. Few studies, however, have examined the relation between savings ownership and use of maternal health services. In this study, we used data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey to examine the relation between women's savings ownership and use of maternal health services. To estimate the effect of obtaining savings ownership on our primary outcomes, specifically receipt of antenatal care, delivery in a health facility and delivery assisted by a skilled attendant, we used a propensity score weighted difference-in-differences approach. Our findings showed that acquiring savings ownership increased the proportion of women who reported delivering in a health facility by 22 percentage points [risk difference (RD) = 0.22, 95%CI = 0.08-0.37)] and skilled birth attendance by 14 percentage points (RD = 0.14, 95%CI = 0.03-0.25). Conclusions were qualitatively similar across a range of model specifications used to assess the robustness of our main findings. Results, however, did not suggest that savings ownership increased the receipt of antenatal care, which was nearly universal in the sample. Our findings suggest that under certain conditions, savings ownership may facilitate the use of maternal health services, although further quasi-experimental and experimental research is needed to address threats to internal validity and strengthen causal inference, and to examine the impact of savings ownership across different contexts.

Patterns of Shelter Use Among Men New to Homelessness in Later Life: Duration of Stay and Psychosocial Factors Related to Departure.

People who become homeless for the first time in late life are a growing but understudied population. This study draws on administrative data from one shelter (N = 1,214 first-time homeless) to assess the extent to which age is related to shelter stay and, to examine psychosocial factors that may be associated with shelter departure. Our bivariate and survival analysis results suggest that older homeless men stay in the shelter 2 weeks longer than younger clients. Older men with pending legal issues and mobility concerns were more likely to leave the shelter than those without such concerns. Findings highlight the impact of age and other psychosocial variables on shelter stay, and provide direction from which to address homelessness among men who are new to homelessness in later life.

What leads to homeless shelter re-entry? An exploration of the psychosocial, health, contextual and demographic factors.

OBJECTIVES: A longer duration of homelessness is associated with poorer health outcomes. Following this logic, policies that aim to reduce repeated episodes of homelessness by addressing its root causes can result in better long-term health. This paper explores how many people return to the shelter in a Canadian context and examines factors related to returns to homelessness. METHODS: The sample included 634 adult men who participated in transitional programming at a large homeless shelter in Montreal, Quebec between 2011 and 2014. Descriptive statistics, survival analysis and multinomial logistic regression techniques were used to examine how psychosocial elements, demographic characteristics and contextual factors were related to returns to the shelter over a one-year follow-up period. RESULTS: Approximately 38% of the sample returned to the shelter within a year of program departure. A return was positively associated with a lack of support from friends and family (p < 0.05) and an imposed departure from the shelter (p < 0.05). Poor support was also associated with a faster time to return (p < 0.05) to the shelter, as was an imposed departure (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Building social networks and altering programs to accommodate those at high risk of an imposed departure may lead to fewer returns to homelessness and subsequently better health outcomes.