contributor's estate). In a recent study of household saving in Chile, Butelmann and Gallego (1999) find evidence of such bequest motives. However, the result could also be endogenous or simultaneous as men with covered jobs could decide to have larger families with greater confidence in their income security. On the other hand, among women a larger number of expected children significantly (1% level) lowers contribution density. While this may simply reflect the preference among women who expect to have many children to stay at home rather than work outside the home, it may also indicate that women in Chile expect children to care for them in their old age, preferring informal pooling to formal retirement security arrangements.

Turning to alternative saving instruments, the estimated coefficient on the log of imputed rent is negative and significant (5% level) to contribution density. Home ownership is often cited as a form of retirement savings and investment in Europe and the United Sates (Barr, 2001, Attanasio and Banks, 2001, Case, Quigly and Shiller, 2001). In Latin America, home property is still the most widely held asset (IADB, 2000) and may be considered a viable alternative to government organized social security. The negative coefficient on the log of imputed rent (LRENT) may be evidence that investment in a home acts as a substitute for contribution to the pension system - one form of savings, substituting for another. However, given the pension system's pooling element, the result may also reflect the predicted preference for savings over pooling among individuals who expect to live longer.<sup>_45_</sup> Among the bundles of assets held ten years prior to the survey, only the coefficient on productive and business assets (WRKASST: including tools, machinery, vehicles, own business), a market-based prevention measure that extends earnings capacity into old age, is significant. For men the coefficient is negative and significant (at 1%), while for women, the coefficient is positive and significant (at 5%). While WRKASST is likely to be capturing prevention measures among men, for women the variable may show relatively greater prudence and forethought in managing extra income from a household enterprise, rather than simply acting as a dummy variable for women who have engaged in income earnings activities.<sup>4 6</sup> Subjective life expectancy (SLIFEX) is included to control for the behavioral effects of the perceived probability of the bad state. As predicted by the Ehrlich and Becker framework, among male respondents life expectancy has a positive and strongly significant (1% level) influence on how much they choose to save in the pension system. The greater the perceived incidence of longevity, the more individuals are compelled to save for income security in old age.<sup>47</sup> However, the same variable is not significant among women.

45 I return to the issue of housing in the next section, where the pooling element of the formal system is separated from the saving element.

**46The** variable WORKED is already controlling for whether a woman has ever worked outside the home.

47 Alternative specifications of the model in which a variable measuring expected period of retirement (calculated by taking the period between the age at which a respondent thought they would no longer be able to earn an income from work, and the age at which they expected to die), was also positive and highly 22