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Rewarding Care, Citizenship, or Marriage? Gender, Race, Class, and Social Security Reform
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Rewarding Care, Citizenship, or Marriage?:
Gender, Race, Class, and Social Security Reform
Pamela Herd, Ph.D.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
ABSTRACTMost North American and European countries are undergoing dramatic demographic changes, particularly increasesin women’s paid labor force participation and the retreat from marriage. These trends have fed calls to reformwelfare state benefit structures in these countries. Altering welfare state policies, however, will impact how benefitdistribution shapes gender, race, and class inequalities. Social Security reform in the United States provides a casestudy to examine how different reform typologies would impact inequality. The literature focused on welfare statetypologies and distribution has paid careful attention to gender and class inequalities, but has been less successful inconsidering the impact on race and class inequities among women. There are two types of reforms to SocialSecurity that would be focused on gender-based inequalities. Welfare states could attempt to spread the risksassociated with marital dissolution or they could reward unpaid family care work. A reform focused largely on class-based inequality would be to introduce a citizenship-based minimum benefit. I analyze how gender-based versus-class based reforms impact inequities among women. I use the 1992 Health and Retirement Study with mergedSocial Security earnings’ data to quantitatively evaluate the impact of these reforms on the distribution of benefitsamong women. Using an altered two-part model (Manning et al. 1987), I find that moving away from marital status,even a benefit that helps soften the negative economic impact of marital dissolution, and towards care or citizenshipwill produce the most progressive benefit structure for future cohorts of beneficiaries. But it is also clear that benefitsfocused on reducing class inequalities, such as a citizenship based minimum benefit, as opposed to genderinequalities, are the most successful at softening race and class inequalities among both present and future cohortsof beneficiaries.
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Rewarding Care, Citizenship, or Marriage?:
Gender, Race, Class, and Social Security Reform
Pamela Herd, Ph.D.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
ABSTRACT
Most North American and European countries are undergoing dramatic demographic changes, particularly increases
in women’s paid labor force participation and the retreat from marriage. These trends have fed calls to reform
welfare state benefit structures in these countries. Altering welfare state policies, however, will impact how benefit
distribution shapes gender, race, and class inequalities. Social Security reform in the United States provides a case
study to examine how different reform typologies would impact inequality. The literature focused on welfare state
typologies and distribution has paid careful attention to gender and class inequalities, but has been less successful in
considering the impact on race and class inequities among women. There are two types of reforms to Social
Security that would be focused on gender-based inequalities. Welfare states could attempt to spread the risks
associated with marital dissolution or they could reward unpaid family care work. A reform focused largely on class-
based inequality would be to introduce a citizenship-based minimum benefit. I analyze how gender-based versus-
class based reforms impact inequities among women. I use the 1992 Health and Retirement Study with merged
Social Security earnings’ data to quantitatively evaluate the impact of these reforms on the distribution of benefits
among women. Using an altered two-part model (Manning et al. 1987), I find that moving away from marital status,
even a benefit that helps soften the negative economic impact of marital dissolution, and towards care or citizenship
will produce the most progressive benefit structure for future cohorts of beneficiaries. But it is also clear that benefits
focused on reducing class inequalities, such as a citizenship based minimum benefit, as opposed to gender
inequalities, are the most successful at softening race and class inequalities among both present and future cohorts
of beneficiaries.
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