Language May Help Or Hurt Retirement Saving

An item (not yet available online) in the Jan/Feb issue of Yale Alumni Magazine spotlights a fascinating bit of research by Keith Chen of the Yale School of Management.

The language you speak, Chen suggests, affects your prudence – your ability to take the long view. Speakers of languages that grammatically distinguish between present and future events (strong FTR languages) tend to take fewer future-oriented actions. Speakers of these strong future-time-reference languages "save less, hold less retirement wealth, smoke more, are more likely to be obese, and suffer worse long-run health."

English, wouldn't you know, is a strong-FTR language. The way we speak clearly distinguishes  between "I own a 3D HDTV" and "I will own a 3D HDTV someday." German speakers, by contrast, often rely on context to indicate present or future action.

You can read Professor Chen's working paper here.