Divorce and Remarriage

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Decreased Standard of Living

The biggest problem facing almost all divorced women is a dramatic decline in economic resources. Paul Amato, after examining the relevant research, concludes that mothers’ postseparation standard of living [is] typically only about one-half that of fathers (Amato, 2001). Thus, divorced women and their children experience precipitous downward social mobility in financial marginality, inferior housing, and social dislocation (Weitzman, 1985:323).

Sources of Income Depending on the situation, divorced women have one or more of five meager sources of

support.

Alimony

One source is alimony (“spousal support”), which is awarded only rarely by the courts (about 15

percent of all cases), usually for a specified brief time. This is generally an option only for the very

affluent, who seek to maintain the high standard of living to which they have become accustomed.

Marital Property

A second source of wealth for divorced women is their share of marital property. Of course, for a

poor couple who separate, there is essentially no property to divide. Even for a couple somewhat

better off, there may not be much to apportion beyond cars and furniture, because the house is

likely to have a large mortgage, with payments the wife will not be able to afford.

Presumably, when there is property to divide, the gender-neutral rules that accompanied “no-fault”

divorce laws will treat women and men equally. However, as Lenore Weitzman’s analysis (1985) has

shown, the effect of these laws has been, rather, to deprive divorced women—especially older

homemakers and young mothers—of equitable economic settlements. The problem is that the

courts assume that, at the time of divorce, husbands and wives are equal. This assumption ignores

the economic inequalities created during marriage. The rules do not compensate wives for the years

they spent making a home and providing emotional support while husbands moved ahead in their

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careers. What of the wives’ lost educational opportunities, impaired earning capacities, lost job

seniority, and lost pension benefits? Judges typically overlook the husband’s career assets, which

are almost always superior to those of the wife—his salary, pension, health insurance, and potential

earning power. Most husbands and wives, in short, are not equal at the time of divorce. Wives are

clearly disadvantaged economically in both the short and long term, facts ignored by the supposed

fairness of the law.

Child Support

A third source of income for divorced women is child support paid by absent fathers. About two-

thirds of divorced mothers have child support awards requiring nonresident fathers to pay child

support. However, this is not universally granted by the courts or, when granted, actually paid by

nonresident fathers. The poorer the family, the less likely they are to receive child support. This is

related to race, as people of color are the poorest members of U.S. society. Thus, White women are

much more likely than women of color to be awarded child support payments. The lack of adequate

child support compounds the economic strain on women who have low earning prospects and poor

marriage prospects. African American women are especially exposed to these sources of poverty

(Furstenberg, 1990).

Welfare

Traditionally, welfare assistance has been a possible source of economic support for the

economically disadvantaged. Prior to the welfare reform legislation of 1996, about four million

women (not all divorced, of course) received Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) for

themselves and their 8.5 million children. Although AFDC was meager, it at least provided some

assistance. The 1996 welfare legislation eliminated AFDC and cut various welfare programs by $55

billion over 6 years (see Chapter 14). Federal welfare monies now are distributed to the states to be

administered by the rules of each state (and, if the states elect, by counties), thereby providing less

assistance to families than before.

Employment

The fifth source of support for single women is a job. Most of these women, including those with

non-school-age children, are employed, but they are disadvantaged in at least three ways. To begin,

the average pay for female workers in the United States is about 78 percent of the average pay for

males. This relatively meager pay is reduced even further by the necessity of paying child care

costs. Finally, women’s work is concentrated either in the secondary tier of the labor market—where

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job security is tenuous, pay is low, fringe benefits are weak or nonexistent, and the chances for

advancement are poor—or in the service sector (e.g., nursing, teaching, sales, and secretarial jobs),

where “women’s work” is clearly underpaid.