We are all accustomed to the argument that welfare weakens the family. Social Security, the granddaddy of the welfare state, may also have contributed to this unfortunate development. A recent study in the American Economic Review shows that people in countries with generous social security systems have higher divorce rates and lower propensities to get married in the first place. Socialized retirement programs are even correlated with couples in poorer countries having fewer children.
Why should this be? Economist Isaac Ehrlich points out that social insurance reduces the benefits of getting and staying married and of having children. With the state as support system, there is no need for the family to assure a secure old age. People who never have productive children themselves can anticipate the collective support of other people’s children instead.
Professor Ehrlich’s analysis is surely just the tip of the iceberg. Social Security changes people’s behavior in ways even more subtle than is shown by the raw demographics of marriage, birth, and divorce. People who must rely on their children in their old age have a focused incentive to assure that those children are productively employed.
How many parents would stand for their adult children’s avoiding work or responsibility if those parents knew they would have to rely on those lazy kids for support in their old age? Parents would be less likely to allow their offspring to squander family resources in an effort to “find themselves.” The parents themselves would be left high and dry if the adult child remained permanently lost.
That’s just one factor. Families are less likely to care for their aging members at home once socialized insurance schemes are in place. This removes the accumulated wisdom of the elderly from the home. It deprives young mothers of help in caring for children; instead, they must rely on child-rearing manuals and day-care centers.
These living arrangements spill over into geography: Without Social Security it is unthinkable that so many elderly people would be living in Sunbelt retirement communities, so far from their children. The consequences of Social Security spill over into politics: Old people have become a political bloc whose aim is to protect and enhance their entitlements at the expense of everyone else. The elderly are freed from dependence on their children but at the cost of becoming dependent on the government and politics. Is this really a net gain?
There is a terrible human cost. Many lonely old people languish in nursing homes, their care paid for by Medicare because the government foots the bill. It has become convenient for those of us who are young to forget about old people because their financial needs are taken care of. But money from the government does not take the place of attentiveness from children and grandchildren. The check does not relieve loneliness.
Throughout most of human history, households included more than two generations. Even young children observed old age and death close up. When we keep old people at arm’s length, we cut ourselves off from universal realities. We even sometimes convince ourselves that this great drama of aging, infirmity, and finally facing death has nothing to do with us.
When Social Security was established, it was a humane program to address the material needs of the elderly. We could not fully anticipate that it would foster a division between generations.
It is understandable that people are eager to pass on to the government the tough business of dealing with aging parents. But the convenience of these arrangements encourages us to separate ourselves from one another.
We pay a heavy price for the government’s relieving us of these ancient human problems.
