Are the widowed too much insured? Survivor’s pensions and living standards upon widowhood in France

To investigate compensation through survivor’s pensions at widowhood in France, this paper uses an administrative dataset to exploit a large sample of survivors whose income is known several years before and after widowhood. An event study first identifies the effects of widowhood on men’s and women’s living standards. Then, I measure how much this effect is offset by the survivor’s pension. To distinguish between total and partial overcompensation, I analyse the heterogenous effects of widowhood according to pre-widowhood share of couple income. The results show that both men’s and women’s living standards tend to increase upon widowhood. For both groups, survivors earning less than 40% of their couple income tend to be fully compensated by a survivor’s pension, while those earning more tend to be overcompensated. Survivor’s pensions largely ensure that women’s living standards do not plummet upon widowhood while also helping to prevent them from falling below the poverty threshold.