Issues of Poverty and Discrimination in Divorce

Divorce is commonly recognized as a major problem in our society. Every year there are more divorces in our country and many studies have been dedicated to finding out why. Much media attention has been paid to the court proceedings or the causes leading up to the divorce, but once the matter has lost public appeal, all coverage is dropped. Because of this, there is much that the average citizen does not know about the short-term and long-term effects of divorce. This paper examines the economic effects on all the parties involved and the discrimination in the process of divorce.

While divorce was once a relatively rare event, and one to which negative stereotype was attached, it has now become almost as regular as cloudy skies in Binghamton, NY. For the past two decades there have been more than one million divorces per year in the United States and this number is steadily rising (Arendell, 1986). There are several historical factors contributing to this trend. After WWII the service sector of the economy underwent a huge expansion, increasing the demand for women workers. As wages rose, more and more women joined the work force. This increase was often motivated by the fact that it was becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain a household on the strength of only one income. While in 1940 just under 15% of women worked outside the home, workforce participation by females increased to the point by 1960 that 32% of the workers were female. This number soared to 47% by 1992 (Kurz, 1995). This increasing labor force participation led to greater chances for self-sufficiency and made it more feasible for women to contemplate divorce. Also, these same increases in women’s wages most probably allowed more men to leave their wives knowing that their ex-partners would have a better shot at supporting themselves. The increasing number of divorces caused by these factors led to less stereotyping of divorcees, which also led to more divorce. Finally, greater acceptance of divorce prompted law changes in the 60s and 70s making it easier for couples to obtain a legal divorce. These snowballing factors have led us to the current situation.

Although it is true that it is much easier for women to find employment now than in the past, and that this increased opportunity has facilitated self-sufficiency in some cases, it is also true that most women suffer a great financial blow immediately following divorce. In fact, “divorce has become so common, and its economic effects on women are so severe, that it is now considered a major cause of poverty in the United States (Peterson, 1989).” Even if a divorced woman is able to find a job, it is unlikely that she will be able to maintain the same standard of living she is used to even if she were to have qualifications similar to the man she just divorced. This is reflected in the fact that the national average earnings gap between men and women currently stands around 35%.

Since the 1970s the no-fault divorce statute has been in effect in California. The change from the fault-based system to the current no-fault system was aimed at reducing the “antagonistic nature of divorce” by eliminating the need for grounds of divorce. It strove to base financial awards on needs and resources rather than on how much blame each party shared for the breakdown of the marriage, and treat both parties equally based on gender-neutral rules. However, this switch, although it has often made the emotional process of divorce less trying, has had the opposite effect on the economic disposition of women after the settlement. Under the no-fault statute, there have been fewer alimony payments made to women because it is commonly assumed, despite nationwide proof to the contrary, that women can support themselves just as well as men in the current socioeconomic climate. In California, the results are painfully clear. The average divorced woman suffers a 73% drop in standard of living within the first year after divorce. These same women still maintain, on average, an 18% lower standard of living even after 7 years of recovery. Fewer than half of divorced women receive alimony or child support payments, and for those that do receive them, these payments provide for less than half of the basic needs of the mother and any children that she may be supporting. In contrast, divorced men experience a 42% increase in standard of living even after making any required alimony or child support payments (Peterson, 1989).

It is important to realize that not only are the two people that entered into the marital agreement affected by the divorce. Children along with their mothers usually suffer the greatest hardship of all in this painful process, and an increasing number are being affected. In 1986 nearly 10 million children lived with roughly 6 million single mothers that had been either divorced or separated. By 1990, that number had grown to nearly 13.8 million children in 7.7 million mother-only families. Numerous studies have concluded that women, together with their children, are being pushed into poverty. So ridiculous had the problem become by 1981 that the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity reported: “All other things being equal, if the proportion of the poor who are in female-headed families were to increase at the same rate as it did from 1967 to 1977, the poverty population would be composed solely of women and their children by the year 2000 (Arendell, 1986).” Although by 1983 slightly over 40% of female headed families were below the poverty level, as of 1991 this percentage had in creased to only 45%. Yet, the 9.69 million people this statistic represents comprise almost 1/3 of the 35.7 million total individuals living below the poverty level in the U.S. today. Luckily, this number has not quite reached the value expected by the NACEO, but it does reflect the difficulty many women divorcees are having supporting themselves and their children on the limited resources and opportunities available to them.

This gloomy outlook that many women have on their prospects of living has severe psychological implications. Aside from the trauma associated with the initial procedure of the divorce, the inability to support themselves and their children have driven many women to the edge. There have even been several documented cases where women have considered committing suicide in the midst of their distress. In a case study reviewed by Arendell, a woman related an experience where in a time of crisis she was unable to find professional counseling,

At one point during the eviction, I was getting hysterical. I needed help. So I called a program called Women’s Stress. Good thing I wasn’t really suicidal, because they kept me on hold a long time. They said, “Well, this program is just for women with an alcohol or drug problem. Does this fit you?” I said, “No, but if I don’t get help, it will.” They said they’d send me a pamphlet, which they did. It cost $25 to join. I never did find help (Arendell, 1986).

Less severe effects have included depression, feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness and inadequacy. Women often had the worst time coping with the psychological effects that their economic distress was having on their children. One woman from the same study cited above shared her feelings,

I had $950 a month, and the house payment was $760, so there was hardly anything left over. So there we were: my son qualified for free lunches at school. We’d been living on over $4000 a month, and there we were. That’s so humiliating. What that does to the self-esteem of even a child is absolutely unbelievable. And it isn’t hidden; everybody knows the situation. They knew at school that he was the kid with the free lunch coupons…My son is real tall and growing. I really don’t have any money to buy him clothes, and attourneys don’t think school clothes are essential. So he was wearing these sweatshirts that were too small for him. Then one day he didn’t want to go to school because the kids had been calling him Frankenstein because his arms and legs were hanging out of his clothes-they were too short. That does terrible things to a kid, it really does. We just weren’t equipped to cope with it.

In addition, many women, who have to work full time to provide a semblance of economic security to the lives of themselves and their children, often end up resenting the father and the “system”. This resentment is caused because they are forced through need to miss the lives of their children while they grow up and during the period when they need the most guidance. Because they feel that their children need parental guidance and because of the daunting fiscal, physical, and mental task of raising a child on their own women often remarry to try to stabilize their situation. Unfortunately, women who remarry out of necessity often find themselves getting a second divorce soon afterwards. “Of those remarriages established early enough to be followed for five years, only three quarters were intact at the end of that time. Of the remaining marriages, most (12.2%) were terminated later by divorce…7.8% by separation…and 5.5% were widowed (Morgan, 1991).” Thus, remarriage is seen to be an unreliable means of re-achieving economic stability.

The custody of the children is always a topic of debate and controversy in most divorce settlements. It is a common assumption that men are always at a discriminatory disadvantage in custody battles, and this is true to some extent. In the past the legal rules for determining custody favored the father, viewing the children as merely an extension of the father’s property. This view evolved judicially in the opposite direction to the status of a decade or so ago, where the mother obtained custody of the children unless the father could prove that she was incompetent to raise the child. This view was based on the opinion that the female had the right and responsibility to “mother” the child through adolescence. “In 1970, California logically extended the egalitarian idea [of no-fault divorce] to the joint custody of children (Mason, 1988).” Since this time, over two-thirds of the states have followed suit and issued some sort of joint custody legislation. This was done to encourage participation by the fathers in the raising of their children. Although, on the surface, this seems like a good idea, especially since those fathers more involved in the lives of their children are more apt to make their court mandated alimony payments, joint custody is also often mandated in cases where no empirical evidence exists to suggest it would be in the best interests of the child or parents. Having stated this, it is interesting to point out that in terms of “actual change in the arrangements mothers and fathers make for the care and custody of their children…mothers still remain the primary caretakers and custodians of their children after divorce, that most fathers do not want to be involved in equal or shared parenting, and that the legal revolution has had relatively little impact on the day-to-day lives of most children after divorce (Weitzman, 1985).” Ironically, father’s rights groups remain convinced that the legal system is unfairly biased towards mothers and that fathers are denied adequate access to their children.

Summarily, women are often put in a disadvantaged position as a result of divorce, while men often come out better off. As a result of divorce, women and children are being forced into poverty at an alarming rate. With divorce rates increasing every year and remarriage rates on the decline, especially for women, the poverty of divorced women and their children will be forced to the forefront of every debate on poverty. Women are often left, through no-fault divorces, with no payments required of their ex-spouses and little means to support themselves. Even some of those who do receive awards from the court do not ever see a cent because of delinquent husbands. These are left with the decision of hiring a lawyer to pursue the matter or paying for the heating bill. Not only are mothers losing their children because they must work through their childhood to support them, but the children’s fathers want either sole custody or no involvement. The court system must do something to equalize the situation. If nothing is done, either divorced mothers and their children will continue to be pushed into poverty or mothers with good reasons for divorce such as spousal abuse will be forced to stay with their destructive relationships. Either increased public assistance must be provided, or the father, or absentee parent, must be forced to take a more vested interest in the welfare of their children.

Works Cited

Arendell, Terry. Mothers and Divorce, Legal Economic and Social Dilemmas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Kurz, Demie. For Richer, For Poorer, Mothers Confront Divorce. London: Routledge, 1995.

Mason, Mary Ann. The Equality Trap. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.

Morgan, Leslie A. After Marriage Ends, Economic Consequences for Midlife Women. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1991.

Peterson, Richard R. Women, Work, and Divorce. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989.

Weitzman, Lenore J. The Divorce Revolution, The Unexpected Social and Economic Consequences for Women and Children in America. New York: The Free Press, 1985.