Do Social Security benefits rules perpetuate marital status and gender inequalities?

Background and objectives: Social Security benefits rules privilege married persons and penalize divorced, prematurely widowed, and lifelong single older adults. Program rules may be an engine driving cumulative (dis)advantage, because marriage is increasingly an institution of economically privileged persons. Women are more likely than men to be divorced or prematurely widowed, increasing their vulnerability to late-life economic insecurity. We examine Social Security and household income, and poverty rates of White older adults based on marital categories aligned with Social Security benefits rules: (re)married; divorced (after short vs long marriage), widowed (before vs after the age of 65 years), and never married.

Research design and methods: Data are from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which tracked White high school graduates from age 18 years (1957) to age 72 years (2011). Our analytic sample includes 5,269 persons (2,498 men and 2,711 women). We used ordinary least squares (OLS) and logistic regression to estimate Social Security income, household income, and poverty status at age 72, adjusted for covariates. We tested two-way interaction terms to evaluate gender differences across marital categories.

Results: Fully adjusted models show that married older adults have higher Social Security and household income and lower poverty rates than all unmarried categories. Divorced women, regardless of marital duration, fare worst across all outcomes. Prematurely widowed persons are worse off than those widowed at older ages. Never-married men are less financially secure than other men.

Discussion and implications: Revisions to Social Security, including caregiver credits for years in which a worker had no/low earnings, could mitigate disparities in late-life economic security.