Including Homemakers in Social Security

Robert Brown, Robin Damm and Ishmael Sharara

North American Actuarial Journal, 2000, vol. 4, issue 4, 28-43

Abstract: For some time, many people have felt that homemaking and/or childcare duties should be classified as “work,” and as such, these people should be included in social security systems. This paper analyzes the current provision for homemakers in the Canada and Québec Pension Plans (C/QPP), along with three other methods aimed at improving C/QPP benefits for homemakers. It concludes that splitting incomes between married couples on a voluntary basis has several desirable characteristics. However, due to a reduction in income taxes payable, the Canadian government(s) would likely reject this approach. To analyze further alternatives, the paper also reviews a study presented by the U.S. Subcommittee on Social Security that looked at various earnings sharing schemes within the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) scheme. Due to the complexity of OASDI, it would not be possible to modify benefits for homemakers without affecting other groups (such as divorced persons and widow(er)s). As such, the subcommittee had several standards for analyzing any potential modifications to OASDI. However, none of the plans presented ccomplished all of the goals set out by the subcommittee. In addition, there would be vast administrative difficulties associated with implementing any of the earnings sharing schemes. Even if these problems could be overcome, the two national security systems are very different, so proposed solutions under the U.S. system might not be appropriate to the Canadian system.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10920277.2000.10595936 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:uaajxx:v:4:y:2000:i:4:p:28-43

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uaaj20

DOI: 10.1080/10920277.2000.10595936

Access Statistics for this article

North American Actuarial Journal is currently edited by Kathryn Baker

More articles in North American Actuarial Journal from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().