A University of Wisconsin-Madison professor has been awarded a $30,000 grant by the Rockefeller Foundation Innovation Award to Strengthen Social Security for Vulnerable Groups.
Pamela Herd, assistant professor of public affairs and sociology at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, will use her grant to develop a proposal to improve Social Security for older women who have raised children.
“Many women end up poor in old age, in part, due to the time and energy they devoted to raising children as opposed to participating in paid labor,” Herd said. “Most other counties reward women for this work. The U.S. does not do so.”