Same-sex retirement benefits lag

Just one in three Massachusetts employers plan to extend the same retirement benefits to spouses of gay and lesbian employees now available to other employees, according to a survey of benefit policies conducted after a state court ruling legalized gay marriage.

Health insurance coverage for employees' same-sex partners has become a standard offering at a majority of Massachusetts employers, and over half said they intend to continue them, in a joint survey by the national benefits consulting firm, The Segal Co., and the New England Employee Benefits Council, which represents employers.

The survey shows ''the vast majority of employers are doing the right thing," said Michele Granda, staff attorney for the Boston advocacy group, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.

For most employers, no more than three gay and lesbian employees enrolled in married-employee benefits after gay marriage became legal May 17. Fewer than 5,000 gay and lesbian Massachusetts residents had applied for marriage licenses in a mid-November tally by The Boston Globe.

But employers showed resistance to expanding retirement benefits to them. In an opposite-sex marriage, an employee's spouse is entitled to receive the traditional pension benefit or 401(k) portfolio if the employed spouse who earned the benefit dies.

Only 35 percent of the 147 private-sector and other employers surveyed in late October and early November said they would offer equivalent benefits to gay and lesbian employees and their spouses; 65 percent said either they would not extend the same retirement benefit to gay employees' spouses or were unsure what to do now that gay marriage is legal.

Andrew Sherman, a Segal senior vice president, said one reason is that most employer-sponsored pensions are federally regulated by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA follows the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. Employers are not required to comply with the state's gay marriage decision, he said, though they are permitted to amend their retirement plans to include same-sex partners.

There is also less pressure from gay employees on the matter of retirement benefits. ''Individuals are focused on the present and on making sure they have health benefit coverage," Sherman said, ''and they don't focus to the extent necessary on retirement until they're nearing retirement."

Same-sex spousal retirement benefits, however, are a ''big issue" for married gay couples who have started families, said Ellen Wade of the Boston-area law firm Wade & Horowitz, a named plaintiff in the case that led to the gay marriage ruling. For example, if only one spouse in a family with children is working, the other won't have any retirement income if the working spouse dies.

A decade ago, employers began offering domestic partner health benefits to gay and lesbian workers because the employees were not permitted under the law to marry and receive health benefits for their partners.

Today, some high-profile employers, including IBM Corp., Raytheon Co., and The New York Times Co., which owns the Globe, are phasing out domestic partner health benefits. Since same-sex couples can legally marry, they should no longer receive special treatment in the form of health benefits that are not available to unmarried opposite-sex couples, the companies say.

However, 61 percent of employers surveyed said they offer domestic partner benefits and 39 percent said they do not. Just over half of employers that offer domestic partner benefits said they would keep them.

Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.