11th Annual IGSS Conference • September 24, 2020

Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences 2020

Association between education attainment and risk preference

Dongyue Ying, Department of Human Sciences, the Ohio State University

This study examines an assumption frequently invoked in economic models that individuals form preferences early, including with respect to risk, and those preferences remain stable. The challenge explores the idea that preferences might be shaped by situations individuals experience that cause them to reexamine and modify their beliefs. Risk preference is widely involved in the individual's decision-making process through influencing the willingness for risk-taking to get expected returns. The possible disclosure of this instability of risk preference may help both the individual and the social planner to acknowledge the possibility of manipulation of risk preference, and to begin to explore the method to maintain or modify the risk preference of the individual. If risk preference is malleable, the individual's choices become dependent on the situation he/she is in. This may bring new possibilities for demographers to describe and explore the individual's inconsistent choices over his/her life, such as marriage, fertility, health, migration, etc. In the analysis, I also explore the possible difference of the instability of risk preference among different demographic groups.

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