@techreport{NBERw17440,
 title = "Does Widowhood Explain Gender Differences in Out-of-Pocket Medical Spending Among the Elderly?",
 author = "Gopi Shah Goda and John B. Shoven and Sita Nataraj Slavov",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "17440",
 year = "2011",
 month = "September",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w17440",
 abstract = {Despite the presence of Medicare, out-of-pocket medical spending is a large expenditure risk facing the elderly.  While women live longer than men, elderly women incur higher out-of-pocket medical spending than men at each age.  In this paper, we examine whether differences in marital status and living arrangements can explain this difference.  We find that out-of-pocket medical spending is approximately 29 percent higher when an individual becomes widowed, a large portion of which is spending on nursing homes.  Our results suggest a substantial role of living arrangements in out-of-pocket medical spending; however, our estimates combined with differences in rates of widowhood across gender suggest that marital status can explain only one third of the gender difference in total out-of-pocket medical spending, leaving a large portion unexplained.  On the other hand, gender differences in widowhood more than explain the observed gender difference in out-of-pocket spending on nursing homes.},
}