Happiness as a Complex Financial Phenomenon: The Financial and Psychological Adjustment to Widowhood in the U.S.

Abstract

Using a sample of relatively young widows and widowers, this paper examines the relationship between psychological and financial well-being of the surviving spouse. For all married and widowed men and women, wealth and health shape financial satisfaction, but widowhood has a fairly selective effect. Controlling for financial satisfaction, the authors find that widows and widowers are more depressed than are married men and women.