Marital Dissolution and Personal Wealth: Examining Gendered Trends across the Dissolution Process

Nicole Kapelle · Janeen Baxter

52 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Marriage and the Family

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Family Dynamics and Relationships Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics

Abstract

Abstract Objective This study examined potentially gendered net worth changes over the marital dissolution process, starting up to 3 years prior to separation and continuing up to 15 years postdivorce. Background Incipient literature showed steep wealth declines for men and women associated with divorce, treating marital dissolution as a single point‐in‐time event. These findings may be limiting as legal regulations and divorce‐stress‐adjustment research conceptualize marital dissolution as a process that lasts several years. Method Using fixed effects regression models, we analyzed changes in personal net worth as well as changes in personal net housing worth and financial net worth of individuals whose marriages dissolved between 2002 and 2017. Analyses used comprehensive wealth data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel study. Results Although wealth declines commenced prior to separation, separation was the most critical point with 82% and 76% reductions in personal wealth of men and women, respectively. Divorce did not pose additional wealth penalties, but wealth was also not recovered in years after divorce. The lasting separation penalty was mainly driven by declines in housing wealth and a lack of financial wealth recovery. Overall, both men and women experienced dramatic relative wealth declines with negligible gender differences. Predicted wealth levels, however, indicated that men may be in a financially better position compared to women due to higher preseparation wealth levels. Conclusion Results illustrated important variations in personal wealth measures over the marital dissolution process, which may drive lasting wealth inequalities, particularly with regard to housing wealth for both men and women.

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References

2000The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children 2001The Transmission of Marital Instability Across Generations: Relationship Skills or Commitment to Marriage?2000Wealth and Stratification Processes 2017Wealth Inequality and Accumulation 2015Yours, Mine, and Ours: Do Divorce Laws Affect the Intertemporal Behavior of Married Couples?2006The Economic Consequences of Partnership Dissolution--A Comparative Analysis of Panel Studies from Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and Sweden 2017The Interplay of Work and Family Trajectories over the Life Course: Germany and the United States in Comparison 2002Does Marital History Matter? Marital Status and Wealth Outcomes Among Preretirement Adults

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2022Pension Wealth and the Gender Wealth Gap 2021Heterogeneity in Family Life Course Patterns and Intra-Cohort Wealth Disparities in Late Working Age 2022Time cannot heal all wounds: Wealth trajectories of divorcees and the married 2024Transitory or Chronic? Gendered Loneliness Trajectories over Widowhood and Separation in Older Age

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