Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how ordinary households deal with lifetime risks. Many households do not rely only on public social security and purchase private insurance and funds.
The way a household deals with risk varies depending on characteristics of the family. We analyze the relationship among the number of children, the number of planned children and the attitude toward risk of ordinary households. The house-holds' choice of private medical insurance, private care insurance and other financial assets are investigated. We found that households with children take more risk, i.e., that their attitude is less risk averse than that of households without children, which can be concluded from the following results. First, a larger percent of house-holds without children hold private medical insurance and private care insurance. Second, households without children have lower amounts of risky assets in comparison to their total asset.
Given these findings, one can say that children can play a role in family safety nets.
