Family Status and Poverty among Older Women: The Gendered Distribution of Retirement Income in the United States

Abstract

While the elderly in general enjoy improved economic status, older women continue to face disproportional impoverishment; nearly three-fourths of the elderly poor in the United States are women. A review of U.S. and British feminist writing suggests that old-age income schemes are gendered in three key ways: (1) retirement income is linked to waged labor, which is itself gendered; (2) non-waged reproductive labor, performed predominantly by women, is not recognized as labor; and (3) family status is conceptualized as permanent rather than transient. The supposedly gender-neutral eligibility and benefit structures of three major U.S. retirement income programs—Social Security, private pensions, and personal pensions such as Individual Retirement Accounts— are examined to show how they produce a gendered distribution of old age income.