title: Lowering social security's duration-of-marriage requirement: distributional effects for future female retirees.
abstract: A number of alternatives to Social Security's auxiliary benefit system have been proposed in the context of changes in American family and work patterns. This article focuses on one modification therein-lowering the 10-year duration-of-marriage requirement for divorced spouses. Using a powerful microsimulation model (MINT), we examine the distributional effects of extending spouse and survivor benefit eligibility to 5- and 7-year marriages ending in divorce among female retirees in 2030, a population largely comprised of baby boomers. Results show that the options would increase benefits for a small share of female retirees, around 2 to 4%, and would not affect the vast majority of low-income divorced older women. However, of those affected, the options would substantially increase benefits and lower incidence of poverty and near poor. Low-income divorced retirees with marriages between 5 and 9 years in length and a deceased former spouse face the greatest potential gains.
authors.affiliation: Social Security Administration, Office of Retirement Policy, Washington, DC 20254, USA. Chris.Tamborini@ssa.gov
authors.forename: Christopher R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Tamborini
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Whitman
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004243:Divorce / Q000191:economics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D017059:Models, Econometric; D011203:Poverty; D011640:Public Policy; D012179:Retirement / Q000191:economics*; D012943:Social Security / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States