---
title: "Why retirees do not spend down: bequests, insurance and…"
description: "About ten papers a year study bequest motives, a steady literature split between economics and finance. Retirees spend their savings far more slowly than life-cycle models predict. How much of that is wanting to leave something, and how much is fear of long-term care costs?"
url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/bequest-motives-and-retirement-spending
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/bequest-motives-and-retirement-spending.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "Why retirees do not spend down: bequests, insurance and tontines: About ten papers a year study bequest motives, a steady literature split between economics and finance."
date: "2026-10-29"
updated: "2026-10-29"
status: "seed"
tags: ["finance", "households", "pensions"]
keywords: ["bequest motive", "bequests"]
---

# Why retirees do not spend down: bequests, insurance and tontines

About ten papers a year study bequest motives, a steady literature split between economics and finance. Retirees spend their savings far more slowly than life-cycle models predict. How much of that is wanting to leave something, and how much is fear of long-term care costs?

## What prompted this

Since October 2025, 10 papers carry a bequest-motive or bequests keyword, after 11 and 9 in the two years before and 75 in the seven years before that. They split between economics and finance journals and sit next to life insurance (7), optimal consumption (5), intergenerational wealth transfer (4), wealth inequality (4) and retirement planning (3). One recent paper asks how bequest motives affect participation in tontines, a pooled longevity product. A [related note](/ideas/inheritance-and-mobility) looks at what inheritances do for the people who receive them; this one looks at why the wealth is still there to inherit.

## Questions

- How much of retirees' slow spending is a bequest motive and how much is saving for long-term care and long life?
- Do annuities and tontines sell better when they come with a refund to heirs?
- Does home equity stay untouched because of bequest intentions, and does that explain the low take-up of reverse mortgages?
- In ageing countries such as Japan, what does slow decumulation mean for when wealth passes to the next generation?

## Data that could help

The Health and Retirement Study, which asks people the chance that they leave a bequest, SHARE in Europe, the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement, and annuity product data.

## Next step

Use the HRS bequest-probability question and wealth paths after the death of a spouse or a long-term care reform to separate bequest and precautionary motives.

## Related research activity

*The keywords this note follows, in the tracked finance, accounting, economics, management, marketing, information systems, tourism and hospitality, operations research and AI journals as of 2026-10-29*

| Keyword | Papers, last 30 days | Rank | Papers per month, Oct 23 – Oct 26* | Papers, last 36 months |
|---|---:|---:|---|---:|
| bequest motive | 0 | – | 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0 | 14 |
| bequests | 0 | – | 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0 | 14 |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Why retirees do not spend down: bequests, insurance and tontines. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 29, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/bequest-motives-and-retirement-spending

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-ideas-bequest-motives-and-retirement-spending,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Why retirees do not spend down: bequests, insurance and tontines},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/bequest-motives-and-retirement-spending}},
  urldate = {2026-10-29},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).