A Re-Evaluation of the Economic Consequences of Divorce

Over the last 20 years researchers have focused considerable attention on the economic consequences of divorce. One book Weitzmans The Divorce Revolution (1985) reports a 73 percent decline in womens standard of living after divorce and a 42 percent increase in mens standard of living. These percentages based on data from a 1977-1978 Los Angeles sample are substantially larger than those from other studies. I replicate...[this] analysis and demonstrate that the estimates reported in the book are inaccurate. This reanalysis...produces estimates of a 27 percent decline in womens standard of living and a 10 percent increase in mens after divorce. I discuss the implications of these results for debates about divorce law reform. (EXCERPT)