Complex marital histories and economic well-being: the continuing legacy of divorce and widowhood as the HRS cohort approaches retirement.

We use data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the marital histories of this cohort of women and men on the verge of retirement. The legacy of past increases in divorce rates is evident in the complex marital histories of HRS households and the relationship between those histories and current economic status. Couples in a first marriage now make up only one-quarter of black households and fewer than half of all white and Hispanic households. In over one-third of all married-couple households, at least one spouse had a previous marriage that ended in divorce or widowhood. These couples have significantly lower incomes and assets than couples in first marriages. Contrary to the popular notion that private and public insurance better provide for the security of widows than divorced persons, currently widowed households and couples in which the prior marriage of one spouse had ended in widowhood are no better off than are their divorced peers. This holds true for both black and white households. From a single cross-section, one cannot tell what caused these differences in income and wealth across marital status groups although it is clear that women and blacks spend a higher percentage of their lifetime outside of marriage than do men and whites. We also speculate from estimates of widowhood expectations for a subset of married respondents that underestimating the chances of widowhood--because both men and women overestimate their chances of joint survival--may be a factor in the relatively low economic status of widows. Because couples in life-long marriages have been the traditional standard upon which marital property reform and the survivorship rules of private and public programs are based, their diminishing importance among all households raises concern about the protection provided by these institutions against the long-term economic consequences of past and future marital dissolution.

The economic costs of marital dissolution: why do women bear a disproportionate cost?

"We review the literature on the economic consequences of marital dissolution for women. Longitudinal studies of the effects of divorce and widowhood indicate that both types of dissolutions have negative and prolonged consequences for women's economic well-being. This is not the case for men, where marital dissolution often leads to an improved economic standard of living. Following an examination of empirical studies and measurement issues in the divorce and widowhood literatures, we describe preexisting and direct sources of women's postdissolution economic insecurity." The primary geographical focus is on the United States.

The poor, the rich, and the insecure elderly caught in between.

Although the elderly are as well or perhaps better off on average than younger groups, measures of the elderly's economic well-being have to gauge the security of their income and assets relative to the financial and health problems they may face. These measures include the adequacy of older Americans' health insurance vis-à-vis their health status, and the sufficiency of their resources to meet possible contingencies, such as severe inflation and costs of long-term care. By applying such measures to the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation, 4.5 million elderly may be categorized as economically insecure. Action is needed to ease the insecurity current public and private insurance policy implicitly imposes on this group, which constitutes 20 percent of the elderly population.

Physically demanding occupations, health, and work after retirement: findings from the New Beneficiary Survey.

This article uses data on a recent cohort of Social Security retired-worker beneficiaries to examine the predictors of work after initial receipt of benefits. It focuses on two factors: an analysis of the effects of ill health and of employment in a physically demanding occupation in the year preceding receipt of benefits. Based on responses received during the Social Security Administration's New Beneficiary Survey, the employment of men in a physically demanding occupation is associated with a lower probability of work in retirement; the existence of a work-limiting health condition also lowers their probability of work. Full-time, full-year workers in 1979 who had changed jobs in the years just preceding the receipt of Social Security benefits were more likely to work after they became beneficiaries. It may be that workers anticipate constraints on their ability to continue working on a job and reduce the effect of those constraints through earlier job changes. The finding that the work effort of women beneficiaries is not affected by previous employment in occupations identified as physically demanding may signify the failure of customary physical demand indices to measure stress on those jobs in which women are most likely to be employed.

The timing of falls into poverty after retirement and widowhood.

A major concern of workers, even those financially prepared for retirement, is that a small risk of poverty may grow over time. Cross-sectional data showing that older cohorts have higher poverty rates substantiate this concern. Using data from the Retirement History Study, we analyze changes in the hazard of entering poverty as a cohort of elderly couples retire and age and the wives are widowed. The initial fall into poverty among those who were not poor before the husband retired is more closely linked to the event of retirement or widowhood than to the slowly eroding household income over the period of retirement and widowhood. The death of her retired husband puts a wife in economic jeopardy whether this shock occurs one year after his retirement or some years later.

Incidence, timing, and events associated with poverty: a dynamic view of poverty in retirement.

Using longitudinal data from the Retirement History Study (RHS), we traced the economic well-being of couples who were not poor just prior to retirement through up to 10 years of retirement. The vast majority of these couples did not become poor during their first years of retirement. However, the risk and pattern of poverty during retirement varied greatly across groups identified by marital status and pension status. Married couples with pension income who survived over the period of our analysis rarely fell into poverty. Even surviving couples without pension income were not very likely to face poverty. Our findings indicate, however, that the death of a husband dramatically alters the risk and pattern of poverty in retirement.

Poverty and living arrangements among older women: are changes in economic well-being underestimated?

Poverty rates have fallen more slowly over the last three decades among older women living alone than for other groups of elderly persons. The simultaneous increase in the percentage of elderly women living alone has given rise to speculation that these two phenomena are related. Using 1950 and 1980 Census data this relationship was explored. Over the 30-year period, poverty among elderly women fell by 35.9 percentage points. It would have fallen further if women had not changed the types of households in which they lived, but by only an additional 3 percentage points. The effect of changes in household composition, however, was greatest for the oldest of the elderly individuals.

Comparability of the measured labor force of older women in Japan and the United States.

Older women in Japan are more likely to be in the labor force than are women in the United States, according to national Census and survey data. However, differences in measured participation, rather than reflection major differences in labor force behavior or utilization between the two countries, may be due to differences in enumeration procedures. The definition of unpaid family work and the timing of the census are different in Japan and the United States and affect the comparability of the measured level of and changes over time in participation by older women in the labor force.