The effects of caregiving on women's Social Security benefits

Using data from the Social Security Administration's 1982 New Beneficiary Survey, we tested a life-course model that suggests that early- and late-life caregiving reduce monthly Social Security benefits of newly retired women workers. Each child raised was associated with a loss of $8 to $16 dollars in the 1983 Social Security primary insurance amounts (PIAs). The 1983 PIAs of women leaving their last jobs to care for others were $127 lower than the PIAs of women who left because of the availability of Social Security benefits, to receive a pension, or because they wanted to retire. Leaving work to care for others exerted a stronger depressing effect on the Social Security benefits of women with low- and moderate- as opposed to high-earnings histories.