FWIW, way back before the housing bubble, I used to study the economic effects of family formation trends and divorce/family law. That’s probably why I feel especially passionate about this subject. 😉
As to the notion that women — especially mothers — somehow come out the winners after divorce, here is the reality of the situation:
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Motherhood carries a steep price tag, mostly in lost wages and benefits. Crittenden estimates that the “mommy tax” easily comes to more than $1 million for many college-educated women, not including other compensation, such as retirement savings. For example, Crittenden worked for some 20 years, the last eight of them at The New York Times, before leaving to raise her son. She earned some $50,000 a year at The Times, plus speaking fees, freelance income, and award money. Her annual freelance income since leaving The Times has averaged about $15,000. Just looking at lost wages alone, she figures motherhood has cost her between $600,000 and $700,000 by “conservative estimate” for the 15 years she devoted to full-time motherhood.
Divorced women with kids are especially at risk financially. Indeed, the most intriguing discussion in the book is when Crittenden details the troubling economic inequities of divorce. Even when property and other assets are split in half, the difference in future earnings between the primary breadwinner (usually the husband) and the dependent spouse with a part-time job or less demanding career (typically the wife) is wide.
Rather, for those who do leave the labor force, many are driven primarily by lack of economic opportunities or workplace pressures. (Stone 2008; Bennetts 2007; Boushey 2005). Those pressures often include work environments incompatible or even hostile to the needs of parents with young children at home. Opting out, or merely reducing their levels of labor force participation, requires parents to forfeit future earnings. As such, it presents a major parenting penalty, paid mostly by women.
We find a “child penalty” in retirement, analogous to the penalty to earnings during the
employment years. That is, women who have had (more) children have lower retirement income. We
also find a reduction in retirement income for those who have spent substantial time caring for
grandchildren or parents. Much of this “child penalty” is explained by having fewer years of
employment, and lower lifetime earnings.
On average, and man’s standard of living increases by 10%, while a woman’s standard of living decreases by 27% after divorce. [for some reason, couldn’t copy the actual quote over, but it’s on page 5. BTW, this is actually from a “fathers’ rights” activist who is trying to debunk numbers published by Lenore Weitzman]
