Reconsidering the Relationship between Age and Financial Strain among Older Adults

Previous research documents a robust relationship between financial strain and psychological distress in older adults, but does not clearly indicate whether financial strain changes with age in late life. We show that age is positively related to financial strain when age and cohort effects are separated using growth curve modeling, and this relationship is masked in conventional regression models by a negative effect of birth cohort. Age-related increases are stronger among women and elders with lower levels of education, but weaker when individuals were born substantially before or at the end of the Great Depression. This research demonstrates that many older adults are increasingly exposed to a pernicious socioeconomic stressor as they age, but these increases are circumscribed by placement in a matrix of historical and structural circumstances. Furthermore, analyses that do not distinguish between age and cohort effects may fail to detect these increases.