Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This paper estimates the effect of early receipt of Social Security retirement benefits on poverty among older women using data from the RAND version of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Women are particularly vulnerable to poverty in old age due to their longer projected lifespans and often shorter earnings histories and lower retirement benefits. Women are also more likely than men to provide informal care to aging family members, and widows and divorcees may face additional disadvantages. Building on cumulative disadvantage theory, this paper thus focuses on older women and considers the interactions of health, caregiving responsibilities, spouse’s health or mortality, and early Social Security receipt decisions on the subsequent probability of experiencing poverty 12, 14, 16, and 18 years after entering the survey.