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RESEARCH ARTICLE |
Income and Benefits Policy Center, Urban Institute, Washington, D.C.
Address correspondence to Dr. Richard W. Johnson, Income and Benefits Policy Center, Urban Institute, 2100 M Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20037. E-mail: rjohnson{at}ui.urban.org
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Abstract |
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Methods. The analysis uses nationally representative data from the Health and Retirement Study to estimate multivariate models of income, assets, and poverty rates for women aged 65–75 in 1999.
Results. Controlling for education, current marital status, and race and ethnicity, the models indicate that women who spent 
10 years raising dependent children outside of marriage are 55% more likely to live in poverty at ages 65–75 than women who were always married when their children were young.
Discussion. The financial difficulties confronting single mothers raising children persist into later life. Social Security reforms, especially those that are not tied to the current system of spousal and survivor benefits, could improve retirement security for these vulnerable women, whose numbers will begin to soar when the many women who raised children outside of marriage in the 1970s retire in coming years.
THE ECONOMIC hardships that confront single mothers are well known. Female-headed households with children receive less income and accumulate fewer assets than households with children headed by married couples (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994
; Ribar, 1999; Waite & Gallagher, 2000). But little is known about how single mothers fare in later life, when their children are grown. This article addresses this issue by examining the economic status of older women who raised children outside of marriage earlier in life.
The number of single mothers has increased sharply over the last generation. In 2002, 26% of families with children under age 18 consisted of a single mother and an absent father, up from 12% in 1970 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003a). Single motherhood grew rapidly during the 1970s, when the number of families with children headed by single mothers increased 83%. The growth rate slowed to 35% in the 1980s and to 15% in the 1990s. Once the women who raised children outside of marriage in the 1970s begin to reach old age in coming years, the number of elderly women who spent time as single mothers earlier in their lives will soar.
The principal factor behind the rise in single motherhood is the surge in nonmarital births, which increased as a share of total births from 11% in 1970 to 33% in 2001 (Martin, Park, & Sutton, 2002b; Ventura & Bachrach, 2000). In 2002, 10% of all children lived in single-parent households with their never-married mothers, up from 0.8% in 1970 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003a). In addition, between 1970 and 2002, the number of children under age 18 living with divorced or separated mothers increased by 56%, although the divorce rate declined in the late 1980s and has been relatively stable since then (Clarke, 1995).
Rates of single motherhood, especially for never-married women, are quite high among African Americans. In 2002, 54% of African American families with children under age 18 were headed by single mothers, and 31% of African American children under age 18 lived in single-parents homes with their never-married mothers (U.S. Census Bureau, 2003b). More than two thirds (69%) of births to African American women were nonmarital in 2000 compared with 43% of births for Hispanic women and 22% of births for non-Hispanic White women (Martin, Hamilton, Ventura, Menacker, & Park, 2002a).
Economic Status of Single-Parent Households
Much of the concern about the growth in female-headed households stems from their high poverty rates. Table 1 compares the economic status of unmarried women and married couples, for households with children under 18, headed by adults aged 18–54. The differences are striking. In 2001, mean income for female-headed households with dependent children was $36,300 compared with $82,000 for married couple households with dependent children, according to data from the March 2002 Current Population Survey. In addition, 27% of households headed by unmarried women were poor (with incomes below the federal poverty level), and more than one third were poor or near poor (with incomes <125% of the poverty level). By comparison, only 6% of married couple households with dependent children were poor, and only 9% were poor or near poor. The economic situation was even grimmer for single mothers who never married than for those who had been married in the past. In 2001, 32% of never-married mothers were poor, and 42% were poor or near poor.
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). In addition, slightly more than half of single-mother families reported zero or negative net worth. Families headed by never-married single mothers fared even worse, with mean net worth of just $1,600.
Conceptual Framework
According to standard economic theory, people make labor supply decisions by comparing the costs and benefits of paid work (e.g., Polachek & Siebert, 1993). The costs of working are high for single mothers, because employment limits the amount of time they can devote to childcare. And before welfare reform began in the 1990s, the existence of welfare benefits reduced the benefits of work. Single women with dependent children could qualify for public support if they were not employed, and they would lose their benefits if they did work and earned much income. As a result, employment rates among single mothers were low. Those who do work tend to earn low wages, because they generally have little education and limited experience. In addition, they lack significant financial support from the fathers of their children. In 1997, only 37% of custodial mothers received child support from nonresident fathers, and the amounts they received were small, averaging only $1,331 for the entire year (Lerman & Sorensen, 2001). Many noncustodial fathers are poor themselves and therefore unable to pay much child support, and enforcement of child support awards is often lax (Miller, Garfinkel, & McLanahan, 1997).
The economic challenges that confront single women with dependent children are likely to persist into later life. Women with little work experience and limited earnings do not accumulate many Social Security rights, which depend on lifetime earnings. Even though the share of preretirement earnings that Social Security replaces falls with income, high-wage workers receive higher retirement benefits than low-wage workers. Women who never marry are not eligible for spousal or survivor benefits from Social Security, and women must remain married to the same man for at least 10 years to qualify for divorced spouse benefits. Traditional employer-sponsored pension benefits also depend on career earnings and years of service, and women with little schooling are unlikely to work at jobs that offer retirement benefits (Johnson, Sambamoorthi, & Crystal, 1999). In addition, those with limited incomes are generally not able to save much for retirement, either on their own or through employer-sponsored plans such as 401(k) plans.
Little is known about economic outcomes in later life for women who raised children outside of marriage. Much of the research on vulnerable older populations has focused on the financial difficulties of unmarried women (e.g., Burkhauser, Butler, & Holden, 1991; Butrica & Iams, 2000). In 2000, for example, 17% of widows and 20% of divorced women aged 65 and older lived in poverty compared with only 4% of married women (Social Security Administration, 2000b). But there has been almost no research examining the special economic challenges that women who raised children outside of marriage face in old age.
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METHODS |
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For each group, we measure average income and assets. We examine income from Social Security, employer-sponsored pensions, earnings, assets, and other sources, and we distinguish earnings and benefits received by the woman's husband from those that she receives herself. We also compute the share of women who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or other types of public assistance, which are indicators of economic hardship because only households with limited income and assets qualify for benefits. In addition, we compute mean income-to-needs ratios, calculated by dividing the income received by the woman and her husband (if married) by the federal poverty level, and the share of women with incomes below the poverty level. Unlike average income, these measures recognize that married couples have higher combined consumption needs than single adults. In 1999, the federal poverty level for adults aged 65 and older was $7,990 for single individuals and $10,070 for married couples (Social Security Administration, 2002a).
We also examine four alternative measures of wealth: total net wealth (defined as total household assets [including the value of future Social Security and employer-sponsored pension benefits] minus total liabilities), net wealth excluding future Social Security and pension benefits, net wealth excluding both future retirement benefits and net housing wealth (defined as the value of the primary and secondary homes net of mortgage liabilities), and total financial assets. Because most financial assets such as stocks, bonds, and bank accounts are easy to liquidate, older adults may be better able to use them to finance consumption than housing and other types of wealth. We measure Social Security and pension wealth as the present discounted value of the stream of future benefits, based on current benefit income (or expected values for those not yet collecting), cohort sex-specific mortality rates, and an annual real discount rate of 3%.
The analysis examines how economic outcomes for single mothers and other women vary by race, education, and current marital status. We also examine outcomes for women who were never married when they became single mothers and who did not complete high school, because they may be at special risk of economic hardship in retirement. We use t tests to measure whether the differences in mean outcomes we observe are statistically significant and 
2 tests to measure whether the differences in median outcomes are significant.
At least some of the differences in economic status between women who raised children outside of marriage and other women may be attributable to the educational and demographic characteristics of single mothers. We use multivariate models to examine this possibility. We estimate an ordinary least-squares regression model of the income-to-needs ratio, a logit model of the likelihood of living in poverty, and a median regression model of total net wealth. Because income is highly skewed, we use the natural logarithm of the income-to-needs ratio as a dependent variable, not the simple level. We cannot transform wealth in this way, however, because some respondents report negative wealth. Instead, we use median regression to limit the impact on our estimates of cases with unusually large values of wealth.
Each model includes indicators identifying long-term single mothers, short-term single mothers, and women who never had children, with whom we compare continuously married mothers. The models control for education, marital status, and race and ethnicity. They also include an indicator identifying women with imputed measures of income and assets, because respondents with missing data may differ systematically from those who provide complete information.
Data
Our data come from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative survey of older Americans conducted by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Aging. The survey began in 1992 with interviews of 9,761 Americans born between 1931 and 1941, plus their spouses. Respondents are reinterviewed every 2 years. The survey was expanded in 1998 to include 2,303 people in the 1924–1930 birth cohort, plus their spouses. When we completed our study, data were available through 2000, when respondents ranged in age from 59 to 76. The survey oversamples African Americans, Hispanics, and Florida residents but includes sample weights that we use to adjust our estimates so that they represent the underlying national population. After we eliminate nonelderly respondents and a few respondents with missing data, our sample consists of 2,611 women born between 1924 and 1934, who were aged 65–75 in 1999.
The survey collects detailed marital and fertility histories from respondents. At the initial survey, respondents report their current marital status and the beginning and end dates for up to four marriages. At each subsequent wave, the survey asks about changes in marital status since the previous interview and when a marriage began or ended. Respondents also report the ages of all of their children. We use this information to compute the number of years that women in our sample spent raising children under 18 outside of marriage. (Because we do not have information about children who died before the survey began, our analysis may miss some spells of single motherhood.) We also distinguish women who were never married when they became single mothers from those who became single mothers through divorce or widowhood.
We measure income, wealth, and current marital status in the 2000 survey. The income data refer to 1999, the previous calendar year, but all other data are contemporaneous. When respondents are unable to provide precise estimates of their income or asset holdings, the survey asks whether the amounts are within certain bounds. These bracketing techniques reduce missing data problems and appear to improve the quality of the financial information in the HRS (Hurd, Juster, & Smith, 2003). HRS staff imputed income and asset data when respondents failed to provide complete information, and we include these cases in our analysis. At least one component of net worth is completely missing for 26% of the respondents in our sample, and at least one component of income is completely missing for 31% of respondents.
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RESULTS |
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Income of Older Women Who Raised Children Outside of Marriage
Table 3 reports mean 1999 family income for women aged 65–75. Asterisks denote statistically significant differences between continuously married mothers and other women. Mean family income was 90% higher for continuously married mothers than long-term single mothers ($43,500 vs $22,900). The gap was due primarily to shortfalls in spousal income for single mothers, many of whom were unmarried in retirement or were married to low-income husbands. For example, mean own Social Security income was virtually identical for the two groups, but mean spousal Social Security income was almost five times as high for married mothers as for long-term single mothers. Similar patterns held for employer-sponsored pension income and earnings. Shortfalls in capital income also contributed to the economic hardship of long-term single mothers, who received only about one third as much income from assets as continuously married mothers. Mean family income for short-term single mothers and women who never had children fell between the mean levels for long-term single mothers and continuously married mothers.
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Median income levels were substantially lower than mean income levels, because the distribution of income was highly skewed. However, observed income patterns were similar when we examined median levels instead of mean levels (and thus we report only means in the table). For example, median family income was $14,500 for long-term single mothers and $31,000 for continuously married mothers.
Comparing average family income levels may be misleading, in that continuously married mothers were more likely than single mothers to be married in retirement and thus tended to have greater consumption needs. To account for differences in family size, Table 4 reports mean income-to-needs ratios, by demographic characteristics and history of single motherhood. Among all women aged 65–75 in 1999, the mean income-to-needs ratio for long-term single mothers was only 2.7 compared with 4.6 for continuously married mothers, 4.2 for women who never had children, and 3.4 for short-term single mothers.
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Table 5 shows poverty rates in 1999 for women aged 65–75, by demographic characteristics and history of single motherhood. Overall, 26% of long-term single mothers aged 65–75 reported family income below the poverty level compared with 5% of continuously married mothers. Poverty rates were lower for short-term single mothers and women who never had children than for long-term single mothers, but they were still high. In fact, women who never had children were more than three times as likely to be impoverished than continuously married mothers, even though the average income-to-needs ratio was only slightly lower for childless women than continuously married mothers (as reported in Table 4).
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Wealth of Older Women Who Raised Children Outside of Marriage
Wealth is an important indicator of economic well-being, particularly at older ages when many adults use the savings they have accumulated over their lifetimes to supplement retirement benefits. Table 6 reports mean and median levels of net wealth, net wealth excluding the value of future Social Security and pension benefits, net wealth excluding Social Security, pension, and housing wealth, and financial assets in 2000, when the women in our sample were between the ages of 66 and 76. Mean total net wealth for long-term single mothers was only $275,900 compared with $682,500 for continuously married mothers, $458,800 for women who never had children, and $398,000 for short-term single mothers.
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), older women who raised children alone earlier in life had few available assets to finance unexpected consumption needs. In fact, mean financial assets, which families can easily liquidate to supplement income, amounted to only $53,700 for long-term single mothers. By contrast, mean financial assets for continuously married mothers totaled $196,900. The economic hardships confronting women in later life who raised children outside of marriage appear even more daunting when we estimate median levels of wealth. Because the wealth distribution was highly skewed, mean wealth was much higher than median wealth, the level held by the typical woman in our sample. Median total net wealth for long-term single mothers equaled $183,900, almost all of which was devoted to future retirement benefits and housing equity. Median financial assets for long-term single mothers was only $1,000. For continuously married mothers, median financial assets was $53,700, leaving many with large financial cushions that they can use to meet unexpected spending needs.
Multivariate Estimates of Economic Well-Being in Later Life
Table 7 reports the results of our multivariate models. The first data column shows estimates for the income-to-needs ratio. Because the dependent variable is expressed as a natural logarithm, the marginal effect of each binary independent variable on the income-to-needs ratio, relative to the omitted reference group, is equal to eß – 1, where ß is the coefficient reported in the table. The second column reports odds ratios of the likelihood of having income below the poverty level; an odds ratio of <1 indicates that women with the given characteristic are less likely to live in poverty than members of the reference group. The third column reports the effect of each independent variable on median total net wealth, expressed in thousands of dollars. Standard errors are reported in parentheses.
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Limited education, single marital status, and membership in a racial or ethnic minority group appear to be even more important determinants of economic deprivation in later life than a history of single motherhood. For example, controlling for other factors, the likelihood of living in poverty was four times as high for Hispanic women as White women, more than four times as high for high school dropouts as high school graduates, and almost 18 times as high for divorced or separated women as married women. Because respondents with multiple sources of income and wealth were more likely than those with limited resources to provide incomplete information about at least one type of resource, women with imputed income or assets tended to have better economic outcomes than women with complete data.
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DISCUSSION |
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10 years as single mothers of dependent children lived in poverty in 1999, approximately equal to the share of female-headed households with dependent children in poverty in 2001. By contrast, only 5% of mothers aged 65–75 who were always married when their children were young were impoverished in 1999. Even after controlling for education, current marital status, and race and ethnicity, we find that women who spent considerable amounts of time raising children outside of marriage were more than 50% more likely to report incomes below the poverty level than continuously married mothers.
Compounding their financial difficulties, women who were single mothers when young generally have not accumulated much wealth when they reach retirement. By her mid-60s and 70s, the typical long-term single mother managed to amass less than one half as much wealth as the typical mother who was always married when raising her children. And median financial assets held by long-term single mothers at ages 66–76 amounted to only $1,000. The limited wealth held by single mothers in later life, especially in the form of financial assets that can be liquidated easily, leaves them financially vulnerable if their expenses rise unexpectedly. The onset of health problems at older ages, for example, often leads to large out-of-pocket payments to health care providers, particularly for those who lack private health insurance to supplement Medicare (Crystal, Johnson, Harman, Sambamoorthi, & Kumar, 2000). With no financial safety net of their own, many long-term single mothers are forced to rely on family, friends, or public support if they should face large uncovered health expenses or other consumption needs.
Shortfalls in spousal support appear to be the primary reason for poor outcomes in later life. Because retirement income is tied to labor market experience, single mothers with limited employment and earnings tend to fare poorly at older ages. Although they receive on average as much income at older ages in their own names as continuously married mothers, women who raised children outside of marriage are less likely to receive spousal support. Despite the leveling effects of the Social Security system, which replaces higher shares of preretirement earnings for low-wage workers than for high-wage workers, many women who raised children alone receive little income at older ages.
The number of elderly women who raised children outside of marriage is about to soar, as the single mothers of the 1970s begin to reach old age in coming years. These women will differ in important ways from those of the current generation. Like other groups, they will be better educated than earlier cohorts. For example, only 21% of single mothers with dependent children failed to complete high school in 1996 (Meyer & Rosenbaum, 2001) compared with 41% of women aged 65–75 in 1999 who spent at least 10 years raising children outside of marriage. Future generations of women who raised children outside of marriage could also reach old age with longer employment histories than the current generation. Employment rates for single mothers rose rapidly in the late 1990s, as expansions in the earned income tax credit increased the returns to work for those with limited skills and welfare reform reduced the availability and generosity of public support for those with limited incomes (Blank & Schmidt, 2001). Higher levels of education and employment enable single mothers to accumulate more Social Security credits and save more, both on their own and through employer-sponsored retirement plans. As a result, single mothers raising children today may fare better in old age than the current generation of elderly women who raised children outside of marriage in the past. It is too early, however, to predict how their later life outcomes will compare with future outcomes for women who did not raise children outside of marriage.
But given the rise in single motherhood, policymakers should consider expanding protections in Social Security for low-income women with limited marital histories. Protections for women in the current Social Security system work primarily through marriage. Married, divorced, and widowed women can qualify for spousal and survivor benefits that are tied to the earnings histories of their current or former husbands. Women who never married or who divorced before their marriages lasted 10 years are forced to rely on their own Social Security credits or SSI, which pays benefits that are not typically generous enough to lift recipients out of poverty. Policymakers could target retirement benefits to women who reach old age with limited means by raising the minimum benefits that Social Security pays or by introducing childcare credits for women who dropped out of the labor force to raise their families (Favreault & Sammartino, 2002). These reforms could also help women who raised children outside of marriage.
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Acknowledgments |
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The authors gratefully acknowledge outstanding research assistance from Joshua Goldwyn.
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Footnotes |
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Received for publication September 3, 2003. Accepted for publication January 15, 2004.
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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  R. D. Plotnick Childlessness and the Economic Well-being of Older Americans J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci, November 1, 2009; 64B(6): 767 - 776. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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