Divorce makes women more likely to have loss of income

Monday, October 20, 1997

Divorce makes women more likely to have loss of income

WOMEN Children from broken homes often have unsuccessful
relations

By Kathryn Combs

Daily Bruin Contributor

As the number of divorces continues to escalate well into the
1990s, the number of single-parent families is also increasingly
becoming commonplace in American society.

Nicholas Wolfinger, a graduate student in sociology at UCLA, has
been looking at some of the impacts of this trend. Wolfinger’s
inquiry showed that there is clear loss of income for divorced
women. And in a related study, he also found that children affected
by these divorces are more likely to experience unsuccessful
relationships later in life.

Although divorce has adverse effects on a woman’s financial
fortunes, women today are financially better off that they were 10
years ago.

"Based on our findings, the loss of per capita income resulting
from marital displacement has decreased about 50 percent in the
last 10 years," Wolfinger said.

Wolfinger’s study on divorce was based on the data of 472 women
compiled by the National Survey of Families and Households at the
University of Wisconsin.

Wolfinger drew his conclusions by comparing these numbers to
similar ones compiled by the researchers at the University of
Michigan 10 years ago.

"Household income still declines a lot more than 12 percent,
simply because husbands are the primary wage earner," Wolfinger
said.

"Things are still very uneven between men and women, but our
evidence shows a change in the direction of equality," he said.

Whereas divorce was once considered the quick road to poverty,
this increase in per capita income enables divorced women to stay
above the poverty line, Wolfinger said.

"Poverty is horrible. It makes every aspect of life harder, and
it is traditionally held that one of the quickest ways to poverty
is divorce," Wolfinger said.

"(Divorced women) are five times more likely to be below the
poverty line," Wolfinger said.

A multitude of reasons account for this change in financial
fortunes.

"(Women today) are more likely to have work experience, and they
are more likely to work when married, even if they have kids. Also,
alimony and child support laws have changed in favor of women," he
said.

"Finally, the gap in real wages between men and women has
narrowed," he said.

"Women who are better off before the divorce do better
financially after the divorce," Wolfinger said.

There may also be a legal bias in favor of women that may lead
to favorable financial settlements, said Steven Bowcut, founder of
a private organization called Responsible Parenting. a counseling
organization that aims to teach parents how to help children deal
with divorce.

In a related study also conducted by Wolfinger, the behavior of
children from stressful marriages seems to mirror the difficulty
caused by divorce.

He also found that children raised in families that experience
multiple marriages and step-parents, are more likely to have
unsuccessful relationships later in life, mimicking this
behavior.

"People often repeat the same patterns that they learn while
growing up," Wolfinger said.

"It has been very well-established that if your parents divorce,
you yourself are more likely to divorce," Wolfinger said.

"There are several reasons," for this, said Wolfinger, "none of
which can be proven with 100 percent surety on the basis of
accumulated evidence."

Wolfinger’s conclusions mirror studies conducted elsewhere.
Children who are raised in single-parent homes are 375 percent more
likely to seek professional treatment for emotional and behavioral
problems later in life, according to the National Center for Health
Statistics.

Wolfinger drew his conclusions from data compiled from 8,465
adults by the University of Wisconsin’s National Survey of Families
and Households.

"The most likely scenario is that this is very stressful on
children when parents divide," he said.

"(Children who experience stressful marriages) simply lack the
many interpersonal and emotional skills necessary to maintain their
own marriage," Wolfinger said.

"It is also possible that a parent’s divorce simply lowers the
commitment to marriage."

Attempting to illustrate Wolfinger’s point, Bowcut cited the
relationship between the increase in single-parent families and
juvenile crime.

"Here you have a question of which came first, the chicken or
the egg," Bowcut said. "All the statistics show that as the divorce
rate increases, so does the rate of juvenile crime," he continued,
indicating the presence of behavioral problems.

According to Responsible Parenting, 85 percent of prisoners, 82
percent of teens who become pregnant and 78 percent of high school
drop-outs grew up in single-parent families.

This research has hit a chord with many Americans, according to
William Roy, director of sociology graduate studies. Wolfinger’s
findings have received a lot of publicity.

"It’s really quite extraordinary how much publicity this study
has received," Roy said. "It has gotten more national publicity
than any other graduate student in my memory and more publicity
than any other faculty," he said.

"It has obviously struck some resonant chord with both the media
and the public."