Date of Award
1-1-2016
Document Type
Open Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Public Health (MPH)
Department
School of Public Health
First Advisor
Danya Keene
Second Advisor
Shelley Geballe
Abstract
As a financial product, reverse mortgage are often used by elderly homeowners to protect against future felt needs, or to address present and past felt needs. Today, reverse mortgages are increasingly used for the latter two. By converting equity in homes into cash, reverse mortgages effectively spend a resource saved from the past, in order to increase options in the future, often at the expense of limiting options in the future. This is in response to many and multiple forms of scarcity faced by elderly homeowner households. Reverse mortgages are an important case study for Shafir and Mullainathan’s theory of scarcity. This study conducts a qualitative analysis of thirteen semi-structured interviews with reverse mortgage holders (and their children) to explore how scarcity affects peoples’ decisions and experiences with reverse mortgages. The present article offers theoretical value to the emerging study of scarcity, and practical value to those working with populations facing multiple, concurrent forms of scarcity, at risk of falling into the “scarcity trap.”
Recommended Citation
Park, Eunsong, "“reverse Mortgage Buys Time”: A Qualitative Analysis Of Time In Scarcity, Timing Of Scarcity, Displacement Of Scarcity And Reverse Mortgages" (2016). Public Health Theses. 1222.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/ysphtdl/1222
