Losers and Winners: The Financial Consequences of Separation and Divorce for Men

By P. McManus, Thomas A. DiPrete. American Sociological Review, 2001

198 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Contrary to conventional thinking, the majority of partnered men in the United States lose economic status when their unions dissolve. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this analysis shows that for most men the primary source of economic decline after union dissolution is their inability to fully compensate for the loss of their partner's income. A secondary source of economic decline is an increase in compulsory and voluntary support payments. Welfare state tax and transfer mechanisms have a much smaller overall impact on changes in men's living standards following separation. Although most men experience a decline in living standards following union dissolution, men's outcomes are heterogeneous, and the minority of men who relied on their partners for less than one-fifth of pre-dissolution income typically gain from separation and divorce. The data show a clear trend toward greater economic interdependence in American partnerships, and this trend appears to increase the proportion of men who suffer a reduced standard of living following separation.

Subfields: Accounting, Demography, Gender Studies

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cf58be86f98ff96a9fe5203e9562e0667ef61a46

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Citations in the corpus

Economic Insecurity and Social Stratification (2012, result): “This finding mirrors research on divorce that reports large income losses for women but not for men (but see McManus & DiPrete 2001).”
Divorce in Europe and the United States: Commonalities and differences across nations (2010, background): “In the United States, divorce is associated with a decline in the economic well-being of both spouses (Braver, 1999 ; McManus & DiPrete, 2001 ; Zhang & Hayward, 2006 ).”
The Growing Female Advantage in College Completion: The Role of Family Background and Academic Achievement (2006, background): “Finally, the financial vulnerability of men to divorce has risen (McManus and DiPrete 2001).”
Does the unemployment rate affect the divorce rate? An analysis of state data 1960–2005 (2011, background): “McManus and DiPrete (2001) pointed out that economic interdependence between husbands and wives has increased in recent decades due to women’s growing labor force participation, the rise in women’s real wages, the decline in men’s earnings (especially men without college degrees), and the greater…”