Objective: Retirement confidence is a key social barometer. In this article, we examine how personal and parental health histories relate to working-age adults' feelings of optimism or pessimism about their overall retirement prospects.
Method: This study links survey data on retirement planning with information on respondents' own health histories and those of their parents. The multivariate models control for the respondents' socio-demographic and economic characteristics along with past retirement planning activities when estimating the relationships between family health histories and retirement confidence.
Results: Retirement confidence is inversely related to parental history of cancer and cardiovascular disease but not to personal health history. In contrast, retirement confidence is positively associated with both parents being deceased.
Discussion: As members of the public become increasingly aware of how genetics and other family factors affect intergenerational transmission of chronic diseases, it is likely that the link between family health histories and retirement confidence will intensify.
Keywords: family health history; retirement confidence; retirement planning.
© The Author(s) 2015.