Shaky Economic Times Are Shakier for Women

Over the last three months, primary voters in increasing proportions have said this presidential election is about the economy. In November, if recent trends hold, women will vote in greater numbers than men. As both parties turn from the business of primaries to crafting their messages for the fall, they will need to address the economic realities of these women voters.

In a recent survey of Americans' economic insecurities, the largest difference in attitudes between women and men emerged on Social Security. Large proportions of both groups worry that social security benefits may be reduced or eliminated, but women are especially concerned, whatever their income level. Even women with very high family incomes ($92,000 and above) are worried. In fact it's at this highest income range that the gender differences are largest -- only about 30 percent of men at that level worry about Social Security's future, compared with 53 percent of women. It's also one area of economic security where white women are nearly as worried as minority women: across all income levels, 55 percent of white women and 58 percent of minority women worry that Social Security may be cut back.

What explains why even higher income women are so concerned about the future of Social Security?

Three seemingly immutable facts drive women's economic concerns, across class and race. First, women have the children and generally rear them to adulthood, whether men help out financially or not. Second, women earn less than men. Third, women live longer than men. These life conditions mean that women meet more demands with fewer resources -- they need to stretch their limited resources to accommodate more mouths to feed and more years to live. To be sure, many women share in men's higher earnings, through marriage for example, but not all women do, and not for their entire adult lives. Many women have learned that marriage is far from a sure ticket to life-long economic security.

Given these realities, shaky economic times always worry women more than men, and for good reason. Unemployment rates are nearly always highest for single mothers -- perhaps because they face more constraints on which jobs they can accept or encounter more discrimination in the labor market or both. In a survey of American Workers conducted in 2007 by Yankelovich at the request of the Rockefeller Foundation, one woman in five reported she lacked money to fill a prescription, one in eight said she could not afford to take a child to a doctor, and one in 14 said she went hungry in the past year. Women experienced these hardships at about twice the rate of men in the nationally representative survey.

Amidst these pressing daily concerns, women also worry they are not saving enough for retirement -- 63 percent of women overall, including 71 percent of those who didn't finish high school and 50 percent of those who graduated from college.

Women know that for them Social Security is a critical bulwark against poverty in old age. Half of retired women in the survey count Social Security benefits as a major source of income, compared with 38 percent of men. Among workers, men have more alternative sources of retirement income: 61 percent of men say they have a work-based pension plan available, only 51 percent of women do. Perhaps in an attempt to build their retirement income, women are increasing their work effort at older ages. Both older women and men are working more since the 2001 recession ended, but women aged 55 and up have increased their participation in the labor market consistently since 1980, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women over 55 were also the only demographic group whose labor force participation increased during the last recession.

Unlike most pension benefits (many of which are now paid as lump sums at retirement), Social Security benefits are provided monthly as long as the recipient lives. And because these benefits are adjusted to keep up with the cost of living, they retain their value throughout women's longer lives.

Besides providing crucial income to retired women, Social Security benefits also help many women raising children whose fathers became disabled or died. In this situation the insurance aspects of Social Security come into play and benefits for dependents or survivors are calculated as if the worker had lived to a normal retirement age. More than 3 million American children are receiving benefits because their parents could no longer work. The Social Security Administration sent the first checks to survivors of the 9/11 attacks in fewer than 30 days. While benefits such as these go to all children at all family income levels, they are disproportionately important to children in low-income and minority families, whose parents often have riskier jobs or poorer health.

Across class and race, women rely on Social Security. This election season, with economic issues becoming paramount as our economy falters in another no-growth or negative-growth period, women would do well to find out which candidate -- whether running for the White House or the Senate or House of Representatives -- is most likely to sustain and strengthen the system that is so important to them.

With this commentary by leading economic strategist Heidi Hartmann, WMC Media Track 2008 begins a series of dispatches on perspectives of issues that the press and the candidates must address in order to win women voters this November.