This study seeks to extend the social meaning of money to account for the valorization of distinct forms of household wealth, using the 401(k) retirement account as an exemplar. In doing so, particular economic shocks are framed within the disasters literature for the first time. The institutional shift from corporate pensions to individual retirement accounts since the 1980’s changed the social and economic logics of retirement, making this financial location salient, where shocks to the stock market reveal a distinct pattern of economic action. Using the 401(k) retirement account data, I show that bear market years in 2002 and 2008 caused retirement savers to orient their portfolios toward durable conservatism – a finding that deviates from predictions made by either neoclassical or behavioral economic theory. Rather, a sociological mechanism developed in the disasters literature – the social amplification of risk framework (SARF) – provides a plausible explanation for the empirical findings. Interestingly, the practical rule of conservation that works well for many disaster scenarios, for retirement savers creates an unfortunate discrepancy between the objective chances of retirement security and the subjective aspirations of 401(k) savers by causing underinvestment in stocks that can produce suboptimal portfolio returns manifesting itself as latent retirement inequality, especially impacting the youngest savers who have the most at stake.
Market crises as disasters: the social meaning of financial risk in 401(k) retirement accounts
