Social Security privatization and older women: A feminist political economy perspective

Abstract

Gender is a crucial organizing principle in society that profoundly shapes the experience of old age and aging and the distribution of resources to older women. Using a critical feminist perspective, this paper looks at privatization in the context of the state, the capital, and the sex and gender system that conjointly reproduce the dominant institutions that render women, and particularly women of color, vulnerable and dependent throughout their life courses. The substantial dependency of older women on the state and its reasons are described. The proposed privatization of Social Security is examined in terms of its gender-biased ideological underpinnings and assumptions about the nature and norms of work, productivity, individualism, interdependence, and exchange. Negative effects are particularly harsh for those older women who do not conform to the model of family status as married with male breadwinner and for those already disadvantaged by race, ethnicity, and class.