Household Portfolios and Retirement Saving over the Life Cycle

Abstract

Using account-level data on millions of U.S. middle-class investors over 2006 to 2018, we characterize the share of investable wealth that they hold in the stock market over their working lives. Relative to the 1990s, this share has both risen by 10% and become age-dependent. The Pension Protection Act (PPA)—which allowed target date funds (TDFs) to be default options in retirement plans—played an important role: younger (older) workers starting at a firm after TDFs became the default option post-PPA invested more (less) in stocks, in line with the TDF glidepath. In contrast, contribution rates changed little following the PPA.