Introduced into the Social Security program in 1939, partner and survivor benefits have important implications for the retirement experience of ladies. At the give up of 2005, 12.Nine million women Social Security beneficiaries elderly sixty two or older (fifty nine percent) obtained as a minimum part of their gain as other halves or widows of entitled employees.1 For these ladies, a spouse or widow gain supplied a bigger charge than that of their very own income record (SSA 2007, Table 5.A14).
A variety of dynamic elements affect the quantity of ladies (and guys) eligible for, and claiming, Social Security partner or survivor blessings at retirement. Past and gift marital repute determines capacity advantage eligibility (generally, one should be currently married, widowed, or have had a 10-year marriage to qualify), and the benefit quantity 婚姻介紹所價錢 is based totally on someone’s lifetime profits report in terms of a current or former spouse. This article specializes in the marital records aspect of eligibility, while acknowledging that large-scale adjustments in ladies’s workforce attachment over the past 1/2 century, inclusive of will increase in exertions marketplace participation and profits relative to men, have led to an boom in the percentage of women retirees receiving as a minimum part of their gain based totally on their personal earnings file.
The connection between marital records and eligibility for partner or widow blessings is of increasing interest amongst policymakers and retirement analysts (Favreault and Steuerle 2007; Harrington Meyer, Wolf, and Himes 2006). Although marital trends have began to stabilize within the United States in current years (for instance, divorce charges appear to have leveled off), an extensive literature files dramatic adjustments inside the marital styles of women over the last several decades. Notable adjustments include increases in divorce, decreases in marriage durations, and a upward thrust in the number of ladies who postpone or forgo marriage.2 From a retirement perspective, transferring marital patterns are crucial as they will mean that the percentage of girls with the choice of saying a partner or widow benefit at retirement can also trade as properly. For instance, recent traits show better proportions of in no way-married girls within the population (Tamborini 2007), which might reduce the percentage of girls potentially eligible for partner or widow advantages by the point they reach retirement age.
Since marital histories help establish whether or not spouse or widow benefits can be a retirement income option for women in vintage age, it is critical to song marital trends, specially as the main fringe of the child-boom generation starts offevolved retiring. This article uses statistics from the 2001 Marital History Topical Module (wave 2) to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to take a look at the quantity to which marital patterns are changing amongst special age organizations of women. The SIPP Marital History Module is considered one of the first-rate surveys to gauge latest marital patterns, especially for the reason that National Center for Health Statistics and the Current Population Survey not acquire complete information on marriage and divorce. Thanks to an agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau, the Social Security Administration has get entry to to a Restricted-Use File of the Marital History Module, which contains the 12 months and month of marital transition events (marriage, divorce, widow). This statistics is crucial as it permits for the estimation of duration of marriages, an crucial factor of this text’s evaluation.Three
To explore how marital patterns have modified over the last 15 years, the object additionally draws on statistics stated in Iams and Ycas (1988), that’s primarily based on the U.S. Census Bureau’s 1985 Marital History Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS).Four To facilitate comparability among the 2001 SIPP statistics analyzed in this text and the 1985 CPS statistics stated in Iams and Ycas’ paintings, ladies are grouped into three age cohorts: Older Age (ages 60 to sixty nine inside the year of analysis), Late Middle Age (a while 50 to 59 inside the year of analysis), and Middle Age (a long time forty to forty nine inside the year of evaluation).
Altogether, the object highlights vital linkages among sociodemographic tendencies in marital patterns, the Social Security application, and its beneficiaries. By comparing the marital histories of women elderly forty to 69 in 2001 to similarly elderly women in 1985, the item provides an illustration of ways marital tendencies are converting and the way such adjustments may additionally effect the volume to which partner and widow advantages could be an choice for future women retirees. Results imply that most of the people of ladies aged forty to 69 in 2001 (over 3-fourths) already had marital histories so that it will assure them the choice of a spouse or widow benefit at retirement. However, a smaller proportion of those girls might be doubtlessly eligible to get hold of partner or widow advantages compared with their opposite numbers in 1985 due to changes in present day marital popularity or past marital period. The significance of exchange between 1985 and 2001 varies markedly by means of age cohort, with the smallest shift in marital styles having passed off some of the Older Age and Late Middle Age companies and the most dramatic many of the Middle Age organization. Notable shifts, through and large, replicate marital pattern changes inside the more youthful wave of the huge baby-growth cohort and include a rise in the proportion of divorced girls with shorter marriages (less than 10 years) and never-married women.