Reassessing Chronic Strain: A Research Note on Women's Income Dynamics After Divorce and Separation.

The economic consequences of divorce and separation for women are commonly associated with the chronic strain model, according to which women's losses are large and persistent. This research note shifts the focus to a crisis model highlighting women's potential of, and routes to, recovery from initial losses. Drawing on German Socio-Economic Panel data (1984-2021) on women in marital and cohabiting unions (N ∼ 27,000 women, N ∼ 3,400 divorces and separations), we use fixed-effects regression models and event-history models to analyze changes in equivalized monthly household income and poverty risk across the process of divorce and separation. Results show that most women recovered from their initial economic declines. Although initial losses were common and often sizable, large fractions of women eventually returned to or exceeded the household income expected in the absence of divorce and separation. Recovery was facilitated by the "traditional" route of repartnering and the "modern" route of women mobilizing their productive skills. Both routes appeared more important than the absence of barriers, such as children in the household. We conclude that for the majority of women, the economic consequences of divorce and separation are better described as a temporary crisis than as a chronic strain.

Divorced and separated parents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant stress for individuals, couples, and families. Divorced and separated couples with children face unique stresses amid the pandemic. This mixed-methods study explored these challenges among 296 divorced and separated parents: namely 204 women formerly partnered with men, 34 men formerly partnered with women, and 58 women formerly partnered with women, who were surveyed during Summer/Fall of 2020. Participants described legal, financial, and coparenting challenges. Those who were not yet divorced described difficulties filing for or finalizing their divorce because of court closures and lack of responsiveness from legal professionals. Those who were already divorced also faced legal challenges, such as being unable to obtain a court date to modify custody arrangements. Financial challenges included renegotiating financial support obligations in the context of job loss. Salient coparenting conflicts, explored through closed- and open-ended questions, included communication issues, different views on virus risk mitigation behaviors, financial issues (especially for those not yet divorced), and transitioning between households and handling remote schooling (especially for those with shared physical custody). Participants elaborated on COVID-19-specific challenges, revealing that (a) lack of communication or agreement regarding shared strategies for risk mitigation reflected and exacerbated challenging dynamics between coparents, (b) remote schooling was often the site of disagreement when one parent felt that they were doing more than their fair share of coordination and oversight, and (c) different perspectives on science were expected to lead to future contention when making a joint decision about whether to vaccinate children. Findings have implications for family and legal professionals working with divorced, divorcing, and separated parents.

La pandemia de la COVID-19 ha generado mucho estrés en las personas, las parejas y las familias. Las parejas separadas y divorciadas que tienen niños enfrentan tensiones únicas en medio de la pandemia. En este estudio de métodos combinados se analizaron estas dificultades entre 296 padres divorciados y separados, por ejemplo, 204 mujeres que antes estaban en pareja con hombres, 34 hombres que antes estaban en pareja con mujeres y 58 mujeres que antes estaban en pareja con mujeres, a quienes se los encuestó durante el verano/otoño de 2020. Los participantes describieron las dificultades legales, económicas y de cocrianza. Aquellos que aún no estaban divorciados describieron dificultades para presentar la demanda de divorcio o para finalizar su divorcio debido a los cierres de los juzgados y a la falta de respuesta de los abogados. Los que ya estaban divorciados también enfrentaron dificultades legales, como no poder obtener una cita en el juzgado para modificar los acuerdos de tenencia. Entre las dificultades económicas se encontraron la renegociación de las obligaciones de ayuda económica en el contexto de la pérdida del empleo. Los conflictos de cocrianza más destacados, analizados mediante preguntas cerradas y abiertas, fueron los problemas de comunicación, los diferentes puntos de vista sobre las conductas de disminución del riesgo de contagio del virus, los problemas económicos (especialmente para aquellos que aún no estaban divorciados) y la transición entre hogares y el manejo de las clases virtuales (especialmente para aquellos con tenencia compartida). Los participantes explicaron en profundidad las dificultades específicas de la COVID-19, y revelaron que (a) la falta de comunicación o de acuerdo con respecto a las estrategias compartidas para la reducción de riesgos reflejaron y exacerbaron la dinámica compleja entre los copadres, (b) las clases virtuales fueron generalmente el punto de desacuerdo cuando uno de los padres sentía que estaba haciendo más de lo que le correspondía con respecto a la coordinación y la supervisión, y (c) se esperó que los diferentes puntos de vista sobre la ciencia condujeran a futuras disputas a la hora de tomar una decisión conjunta acerca de si vacunar o no a los niños. Los resultados tienen consecuencias para los especialistas en familia y en leyes que trabajan con padres divorciados, que se están divorciando y separados.

The Economic Consequences of Gray Divorce for Women and Men.

OBJECTIVES: Gray divorce, which describes divorce among persons aged 50 and older, is increasingly common reflecting the doubling of the gray divorce rate since 1990. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the consequences of gray divorce and in particular how women and men fare economically during the aftermath. METHOD: Using longitudinal data from the 2004-2014 Health and Retirement Study, we estimated hybrid fixed/random-effects models comparing women's and men's economic well-being prior to, during, and following gray divorce and subsequent repartnering. RESULTS: Women experienced a 45% decline in their standard of living (measured by an income-to-needs ratio), whereas men's dropped by just 21%. These declines persisted over time for men, and only reversed for women following repartnering, which essentially offset women's losses associated with gray divorce. No gender gap emerged for changes in wealth following divorce with both women and men experiencing roughly a 50% drop. Similarly, repartnering was ameliorative only for women's wealth. DISCUSSION: Gray divorce is often financially devastating, especially for women. Although repartnering seems to reverse most of the economic costs of gray divorce for women, few form new co-residential unions after divorce. This study offers a cautionary tale about the financial aftermath of gray divorce, which is likely to contribute to growing economic disadvantage among older adults.

A gender-focused analysis of structural and social precipitators to child institutionalization in Azerbaijan: A qualitative study.

Deinstitutionalization reforms in the post-Soviet region-the region with the highest rate of institutional care worldwide-are aimed at reducing the number of children in institutions. To develop context-specific gatekeeping strategies and prevent new cohorts of children from entering institutions, it is crucial to understand the local factors that contribute to institutional placement. Using a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study explores the contexts of institutional placement of children in Azerbaijan from their caregivers' perspectives. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews of the parents and primary caregivers (N = 26) of children placed in the institutional care system in Azerbaijan. Using systematic thematic analysis with inductive coding, we identified caregivers' reasons for placing children in the system, and inferred the life circumstances that led parents-women in particular-to be more likely to place their children in institutions. Our findings reveal multiple, gendered pathways that contribute to such placement. The majority of caregivers were single mothers, many of whom had divorced their husbands in response to domestic violence (often attributed to the husband's substance addiction). The strong stigma against divorce led women to be ostracized by close family members, often leaving them without economic and social support. Because of the limitations of public benefits available in the region, publicly-funded child institutions are often the only remaining way to provide education and care for their children. This qualitative study shows the importance of addressing the social and economic needs of parents, single mothers in particular, to prevent child institutional placement in the post-Soviet Caucasus region.

Gender Differences in the Consequences of Divorce: A Study of Multiple Outcomes.

In this study, I examined gender differences in the consequences of divorce by tracing annual change in 20 outcome measures covering four domains: economic, housing and domestic, health and well-being, and social. I used data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) and fixed-effects panel regression models on a sample of N = 18,030 individuals initially observed in a marital union, N = 1,220 of whom divorced across the observation period (1984-2015). Three main findings emerged from the analysis. First, men were more vulnerable to short-term consequences of divorce for subjective measures of well-being, but postdivorce adaptation alleviated gender differences in these outcomes. Second, a medium-term view on multiple outcomes showed more similarity than differences between women and men. The medium-term consequences of divorce were similar in terms of subjective economic well-being; mental health, physical health, and psychological well-being; residential moves, homeownership, and satisfaction with housework; and chances of repartnering, social integration with friends and relatives, and feelings of loneliness. Third, the key domain in which large and persistent gender differences emerged were women's disproportionate losses in household income and associated increases in their risk of poverty and single parenting. Taken together, these findings suggest that men's disproportionate strain of divorce is transient, whereas women's is chronic.

Later Life Marital Dissolution and Repartnership Status: A National Portrait.

Objectives: Our study compares two types of later life marital dissolution that occur after age 50-divorce and widowhood-and their associations with repartnership status (i.e., remarried, cohabiting, or unpartnered). Method: We used data from the Health and Retirement Study to provide a portrait of later life divorce and widowhood for women and men. Next, we tested whether marital dissolution type is related to women's and men's repartnered status, distinguishing among remarrieds, cohabitors, and unpartnereds, net of key sociodemographic indicators. Results: Divorcees are more often repartnered through either remarriage or cohabitation than are widoweds. This gap persists among women net of an array of sociodemographic factors. For men, the differential is reduced to nonsignificance with the inclusion of these factors. Discussion: Later life marital dissolution increasingly occurs through divorce rather than widowhood, and divorce is more often followed by repartnership. The results from this study suggest that gerontological research should not solely focus on widowhood but also should pay attention to divorce and repartnering during later life.

Antecedents of Gray Divorce: A Life Course Perspective.

Objectives: Increasingly, older adults are experiencing divorce, yet little is known about the risk factors associated with divorce after age 50 (termed "gray divorce"). Guided by a life course perspective, our study examined whether key later life turning points are related to gray divorce. Method: We used data from the 1998-2012 Health and Retirement Study to conduct a prospective, couple-level discrete-time event history analysis of the antecedents of gray divorce. Our models incorporated key turning points (empty nest, retirement, and poor health) as well as demographic characteristics and economic resources. Results: Contrary to our expectations, the onset of an empty nest, the wife's or husband's retirement, and the wife's or husband's chronic conditions were unrelated to the likelihood of gray divorce. Rather, factors traditionally associated with divorce among younger adults were also salient for older adults. Marital duration, marital quality, home ownership, and wealth were negatively related to the risk of gray divorce. Discussion: Gray divorce is especially likely to occur among couples who are socially and economically disadvantaged, raising new questions about the consequences of gray divorce for individual health and well-being.

New Evidence Against a Causal Marriage Wage Premium.

Recent research has shown that men's wages rise more rapidly than expected prior to marriage, but interpretations diverge on whether this indicates selection or a causal effect of anticipating marriage. We seek to adjudicate this debate by bringing together literatures on (1) the male marriage wage premium; (2) selection into marriage based on men's economic circumstances; and (3) the transition to adulthood, during which both union formation and unusually rapid improvements in work outcomes often occur. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we evaluate these perspectives. We show that wage declines predate rather than follow divorce, indicating no evidence that staying married benefits men's wages. We find that older grooms experience no unusual wage patterns at marriage, suggesting that the observed marriage premium may simply reflect co-occurrence with the transition to adulthood for younger grooms. We show that men entering shotgun marriages experience similar premarital wage gains as other grooms, casting doubt on the claim that anticipation of marriage drives wage increases. We conclude that the observed wage patterns are most consistent with men marrying when their wages are already rising more rapidly than expected and divorcing when their wages are already falling, with no additional causal effect of marriage on wages.

The Distributional Impact of Social Security Policy Options.

Using microsimulation, we estimate the effects of three policy proposals that would alter Social Security's eligibility rules or benefit structure to reflect changes in women's labor force activity, marital patterns, and differential mortality among the aged. First, we estimate a set of options related to the duration of marriage required to receive divorced spouse and survivor benefits. Second, we estimate the effects of an earnings sharing proposal with survivor benefits, in which benefits are based entirely on earned benefits with spouses sharing their earnings during years of marriage. Third, we estimate the effects of adjusting benefits to reflect the increasing differential life expectancy by lifetime earnings. The results advance our understanding of the distributional effects of these alternative policy options on projected benefits and retirement income, including poverty and supplemental poverty status, of divorced and widowed women aged 60 or older in 2030.

Creating social policy to support women's agency in coercive settings: A case study from Uganda.

Many emphasise the need for policies that support women's agency in highly coercive settings, and the importance of involving target women in public deliberation to inform policy design. The Ugandan Marriage and Divorce Bill seeks to strengthen women's agency in marriage, but has faced many obstacles, including objections from many women themselves in public consultations. We explore key stakeholders' accounts of the difficulties facing the Bill's progress to date, through focus groups with 24 rural and urban men and women, interviews with 14 gender champions in government, non-governmental organisations and legal sectors, and 25 relevant media and radio reports. Thematic analysis revealed an array of representations of the way the Bill's progress was shaped by the public consultation process, the nature of the Ugandan public sphere, the understanding and manipulation of concepts such as 'culture' and 'custom' in public discourse, the impact of economic inequalities on women's understandings of their gendered interests and low women's trust in the law and the political process. We discuss the complexities of involving highly marginalised women in public debates about gender issues and highlight possible implications for conceptualising agency, gender and social change as tools for gender policy and activism in extreme inequality.

'I don't need an eye for an eye': Women's responses to intimate partner violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

This paper explores the possibilities for agency in intimate partner violence (IPV) situations from the perspective of women in Sierra Leone and Liberia using focus group discussions (N groups = 14, N participants = 110) and individual interviews (N = 20). Findings identify multiple interrelated factors influencing the decision-making of women experiencing IPV. At the individual level, emotional factors and women's knowledge of their rights and options influence their decision-making. At the relational level, the role of neighbours, family and friends is crucial, both for emotional support and practical assistance. At the community level, more formal structures play a role, such as chiefs and women's groups, though their effectiveness varies. At the structural level are barriers to effective responses, including a poorly functioning criminal justice system and a social system in which children often stay with fathers following separation or divorce. Strong cultural beliefs operate to keep women in abusive relationships. We identify implications for prevention and response services and make practice recommendations. Since the desire of most women experiencing IPV was to live in peace with their husbands, interventions should respect women's priorities by focusing more on prevention and interventions to end the violence, rather than solely assisting women to leave violent relationships.

Trends in the economic consequences of marital and cohabitation dissolution in the United States.

Mothers in the United States use a combination of employment, public transfers, and private safety nets to cushion the economic losses of romantic union dissolution, but changes in maternal labor force participation, government transfer programs, and private social networks may have altered the economic impact of union dissolution over time. Using nationally representative panels from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) from 1984 to 2007, we show that the economic consequences of divorce have declined since the 1980s owing to the growth in married women's earnings and their receipt of child support and income from personal networks. In contrast, the economic consequences of cohabitation dissolution were modest in the 1980s but have worsened over time. Cohabiting mothers' income losses associated with union dissolution now closely resemble those of divorced mothers. These trends imply that changes in marital stability have not contributed to rising income instability among families with children, but trends in the extent and economic costs of cohabitation have likely contributed to rising income instability for less-advantaged children.

Forgoing dental care for economic reasons in Switzerland: a six-year cross-sectional population-based study.

BACKGROUND: While oral health is part of general health and well-being, oral health disparities nevertheless persist. Potential mechanisms include socioeconomic factors that may influence access to dental care in the absence of universal dental care insurance coverage. We investigated the evolution, prevalence and determinants (including socioeconomic) of forgoing of dental care for economic reasons in a Swiss region, over the course of six years. METHODS: Repeated population-based surveys (2007-2012) of a representative sample of the adult population of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. Forgone dental care, socioeconomic and insurance status, marital status, and presence of dependent children were assessed using standardized methods. RESULTS: A total of 4313 subjects were included, 10.6% (457/4313) of whom reported having forgone dental care for economic reasons in the previous 12 months. The crude percentage varied from 2.4% in the wealthiest group (monthly income ≥ 13,000 CHF, 1 CHF ≈ 1$) to 23.5% among participants with the lowest income (<3,000 CHF). Since 2007/8, forgoing dental care remained stable overall, but in subjects with a monthly income of <3,000 CHF, the adjusted percentage increased from 16.3% in 2007/8 to 20.6% in 2012 (P trend = 0.002). Forgoing dental care for economic reasons was independently associated with lower income, younger age, female gender, current smoking, having dependent children, divorced status and not living with a partner, not having a supplementary health insurance, and receipt of a health insurance premium cost-subsidy. CONCLUSIONS: In a Swiss region without universal dental care insurance coverage, prevalence of forgoing dental care for economic reasons was high and highly dependent on income. Efforts should be made to prevent high-risk populations from forgoing dental care.

The effect of relationship status on health with dynamic health and persistent relationships.

The dynamic evolution of health and persistent relationship status pose econometric challenges to disentangling the causal effect of relationships on health from the selection effect of health on relationship choice. Using a new econometric strategy we find that marriage is not universally better for health. Rather, cohabitation benefits the health of men and women over 45, being never married is no worse for health, and only divorce marginally harms the health of younger men. We find strong evidence that unobservable health-related factors can confound estimates. Our method can be applied to other research questions with dynamic dependent and multivariate endogenous variables.

Do mother's and father's education condition the impact of parental divorce on child well-being?

We use the British Cohort Study to investigate to what extent parental resources moderate the association between parental divorce in childhood and lowered child well-being as indicated by maternal reports of child psychological well-being and by academic test scores (reading and math tests). We argue that children of mothers with more years of education suffer less when their parents split up because better educated mothers may be better able to provide a safe and stable environment for their children after divorce. In addition, we argue that having a better educated father could either aggravate or reduce the effects of parental divorce. This is one of the first studies to simultaneously investigate the role of maternal, and paternal resources, and pre-divorce shared resources. Our analyses indicate that the effect of parental divorce on psychological well-being is reduced for better educated mothers and for families with more pre-divorce economic resources, but increased for better educated fathers. For academic test scores we find a protective effect of having a better educated father and higher pre-divorce social resources.

Divorce and women's risk of health insurance loss.

This article bridges the literatures on the economic consequences of divorce for women with that on marital transitions and health by focusing on women's health insurance. Using a monthly calendar of marital status and health insurance coverage from 1,442 women in the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examine how women's health insurance changes after divorce. Our estimates suggest that roughly 115,000 American women lose private health insurance annually in the months following divorce and that roughly 65,000 of these women become uninsured. The loss of insurance coverage we observe is not just a short-term disruption. Women's rates of insurance coverage remain depressed for more than two years after divorce. Insurance loss may compound the economic losses women experience after divorce and contribute to as well as compound previously documented health declines following divorce.

Family structure, family disruption, and profiles of adolescent religiosity.

Youth in the United States are experiencing increasing numbers of family transitions as parents move in and out of marriages and cohabiting relationships. Using three waves of survey data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, I examine the relationship between family structure, parental breakup, and adolescent religiosity. A person-centered measure of the religiosity of adolescents is used to identify youth as Abiders, Adapters, Assenters, Avoiders, or Atheists and to assess movement of youth between the religious profiles between 2003 and 2008. Wave 1 family structure is not significantly related to religious change among adolescents at Wave 3. In contrast, the experience of a parental breakup is related to a change in religious profiles over time. Parental breakup is associated with religious decline among Abiders and Adapters, youth characterized by high levels of religious salience. However, among Assenters who are marginally tied to religion, a parental breakup or divorce is associated with increased religious engagement.

Broken boundaries or broken marriages? Racial intermarriage and divorce in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: Several recent studies have investigated the consequences of racial intermarriage for marital stability. None of these studies properly control for first-order racial differences in divorce risk, therefore failing to appropriately identify the effect of intermarriage. Our article builds on an earlier generation of studies to develop a model that appropriately identifies the consequences of crossing racial boundaries in matrimony. METHODS: We analyze the 1995 and 2002 National Survey of Family Growth using a parametric event-history model called a sickle model. To appropriately identify the effect of interracial marriage we use the interaction of wife's race and husband's race. RESULTS: We find elevated divorce rates for Latino/white intermarriages but not for black/white intermarriages. Seventy-two percent of endogamous Latino marriages remain intact at 15 years, but only 58 percent of Latino husband/white wife and 64 percent of white husband/Latina wife marriages are still intact. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified an important deficiency in previous studies and provide a straightforward resolution. Although higher rates of Latino/white intermarriage may indicate more porous group boundaries, the greater instability of these marriages suggests that these boundaries remain resilient.