June 2016
Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

How Work & Marriage Trends Affect Social Security’s Family Benefits

by Steven A. Sass
IB#16-9

The brief’s key findings are:

• Social Security’s spousal and survivor (“family”) benefits were designed in the 1930s for a one-earner married couple.

• Today, family benefits contribute less to retirement income because most married women work, and many households are headed by single mothers.

• Single mothers who were never married are not eligible for family benefits, nor are divorced women who were married less than 10 years.

• These women often find it harder to earn an adequate Social Security benefit on their own, as their work opportunities are constrained by child-rearing duties.

• Policy experts have suggested ways to help:
  • Earnings sharing among married couples could raise benefits for women who later become divorced.
  • Caregiving credits could help mothers regardless of their marital status.