Putting it off: family breast cancer history and women's retirement planning

Cancer diagnoses have significant consequences that extend beyond the individual to family members. Our research builds on prior research by examining how a family history of breast cancer is related to women's retirement preparations.

Taking guidance from the stress process model, we generate and test hypotheses using multivariate logistic regression and unique data on retirement planning and familial cancer histories for 467 women. We supplement this analysis with the qualitative findings from two focus groups.

We find consistent evidence that women with a mother and/or sister who had a breast cancer diagnosis are significantly less likely to engage in retirement preparation activities than otherwise similar women with no family history. The same effect is not observed when other first-degree relatives have different cancer diagnoses. The face validity of these quantitative findings is confirmed by the focus group analysis.

Our research suggests that the stressors experienced by close female relatives of women who have had breast cancer may lead to behaviors and attitudes that have consequences for their post-retirement quality of life.