ERIC Number: ED229707
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1982-Sep
Pages: 20
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Financial Dislocations among Divorcing Families.
Little, Marilyn J.
Extensive economic changes may be brought about by divorce. In an attempt to demonstrate that the degree of financial dislocation following divorce depends on three factors--custody arrangements, wife's employment, and social class--data on men's and women's employment, income, and support payments were gathered for 222 divorcing families. Total income and per capita income were calculated for each household. Data analyses indicated that men and women did not experience similar financial dislocations from divorce. Even when men retained custody of their children, they and their children were affected less severly than women with custody. Men who did not retain custody may have had less monthly income, but their income relative to their needs increased. The only women who appeared to gain slightly through divorce were women on the lowest end of the income scale, who were unemployed during marriage but employed after divorce. The findings suggest that even though the sex-wage disparity has become somewhat of a truism during the past decade, this knowledge has not changed the actual situation--in fact, there is some evidence that the sex-wage differential is increasing, a situation that will contribute to one fourth of the children in the United States experiencing serious financial difficulties when their parents divorce. (AG)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (77th, San Francisco, CA, September 6-10, 1982).