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Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

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Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#141

Post by zaroth »

icebraining wrote: post #136
zaroth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another way to think of it...The economics of a marriage are just this: two people promising to be equals. The man and woman give to each other everything they have; economic, socioeconomic, mind, body, and soul. There is perfect economy in this Union. After such a union is dissolved, from one perspective both have lost half of everything. Both are a fraction of what they once were. The loss is staggering -- d…

It's not chivalry. The concept of alimony is a recognition that house keeping and child rearing is work too, even if not a job, that the stay-at-home spouse performs for the benefit of both parties. It's essentially unemployment benefits owed by the marriage as an association. Now, implementations vary, it's often hard to know facts about the life of the marriage and there are certainly many biases affecting judgment…

Are you saying a partner should be reimbursed after the fact for doing that job versus something in the workplace? Also I think the argument for diminished wages is overblown. If one partner chooses to stay at home, if that was their choice, then I don't get it. We all make choices which impact our future job prospects. Unless it's something that one spouse did to the other, why should one spouse pay reparations to the other?

Calling it something like unemployment benefits is a cute line, but a busted analogy. The child rearing did not produce income, but it does cost money. It's an expense which should be shared equally until the children are over 18 absolutely, and the number of hours spent caring for the children should be equally and highly valued. Child support is a different matter entirely. I think alimony by definition is not child support?

Now once the kids are grown a bit, perhaps your skills are now somewhat obsolete. Once the kids are in school full time, 5-6 years old, how many at that point are actually staying at home?

Even if a person is just starting a career, how many years into it does it take to get established? 2-3 years you can get started in almost any industry. Don't tell me the stay-at-home partner just really wanted to be a Doctor and they should be funded to go to that now. So I can absolutely see paying for 2-3 years if the income is there, and it's needed for the ex to get started in their new life.

The best thing for these laws will be gay marriage. When it's two same-sex partners being judged, how the decision making might be surprisingly rational!

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#142

Post by d4nte »

home_boi wrote: post #104
int_19h wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The points that have merit constitute the bulk of the message coming from people self-identifying as feminists. Sure, there's all kind of weird stuff - TERFs, separatist and even supremacist feminists etc - but they're a minority compared to the mainstream. On the other hand, when looking at the MRA scene (again, going by self-identification of the speakers), the mainstream seems to consist of "incels", red pillers,…

What "message" are you talking about? I've associated feminism with "women make $0.67 for every dollar that a man makes for the same job, working the same hours" and equal gender ratio over equal opportunity.

Based on numerous conversations I've had with self-identifying feminists, I would say the primary message seems to be that a person's gender (regardless of what it is) shouldn't decide their opportunities in life. Opinions on the extent or existence of systemic societal discrimination against women tend to depend largely on individual experience (and admittedly, on occasion, misinterpreted and badly gathered statistics) I think. And of course, there are as many versions of feminism as there are feminists because no two people are exactly alike.

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#143

Post by DominikR »

icebraining wrote: post #136
zaroth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another way to think of it...The economics of a marriage are just this: two people promising to be equals. The man and woman give to each other everything they have; economic, socioeconomic, mind, body, and soul. There is perfect economy in this Union. After such a union is dissolved, from one perspective both have lost half of everything. Both are a fraction of what they once were. The loss is staggering -- d…

It's not chivalry. The concept of alimony is a recognition that house keeping and child rearing is work too, even if not a job, that the stay-at-home spouse performs for the benefit of both parties. It's essentially unemployment benefits owed by the marriage as an association. Now, implementations vary, it's often hard to know facts about the life of the marriage and there are certainly many biases affecting judgment…

> It's essentially unemployment benefits owed by the marriage as an association.

1) You don't get unemployment benefits for life. There is usually a limit. It is a free ride.

2) Women today expect men to share work at home equally. Not every couple does that but many do and most women do return to their jobs a few years after child birth. So what exactly should the women be reimbursed for?

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#144

Post by thaumasiotes »

DominikR wrote: post #45

I don't know what the laws are in the US regarding divorce but there's an astonishing imbalance in favour of women in many EU countries that causes marriages to be an unacceptable risk for me and many other men. You can get divorced for no cause (no infidelity, financials are fine and you didn't do anything else wrong) and you'll be forced to hand over 40% of your net income to your ex-wife for the rest of your life.…

> I'm fine with women leaving for no cause (it's her business) and also with financially supporting children (as probably most men are)

My mother's parents divorced acrimoniously.

She told me that her mother was constantly fighting to receive child support checks. They were always late, any disputes that could be raised were raised, etc.

When she went off to college, the checks were assigned to her rather than her mother. And, like magic, they arrived on time and in full, with never a word of complaint.

I think a majority of men are indeed quite willing to support their children financially, even children they don't see much. But money extracted from you by a court and handed over to your ex-wife to be spent however she sees fit is something a little different.

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#145

Post by dredmorbius »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #113

If we realize that the legal system has made the wife essentially a stockholder who is entitled to a stream of dividends from her marriage, and who has a right to sell when she sees fit, it's no surprise that women choose to sell when there is a sustained decline in earnings.

And that men choose not to enter into that business partnership.

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#146

Post by [deleted] »

DominikR wrote: post #45

I don't know what the laws are in the US regarding divorce but there's an astonishing imbalance in favour of women in many EU countries that causes marriages to be an unacceptable risk for me and many other men. You can get divorced for no cause (no infidelity, financials are fine and you didn't do anything else wrong) and you'll be forced to hand over 40% of your net income to your ex-wife for the rest of your life.…

[deleted]

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#147

Post by proc0 »

Well we know women choose men based on how likely they'll be to commit and properly provide to her offspring. So I guess it's not much of a surprise there. What I think is surprising, is that it seems society looks at women as the victim of a divorce, when this is telling a different story where women have a plan of when to exit.

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#148

Post by icebraining »

DominikR wrote: post #143
icebraining wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not chivalry. The concept of alimony is a recognition that house keeping and child rearing is work too, even if not a job, that the stay-at-home spouse performs for the benefit of both parties. It's essentially unemployment benefits owed by the marriage as an association. Now, implementations vary, it's often hard to know facts about the life of the marriage and there are certainly many biases affecting judgment…

> It's essentially unemployment benefits owed by the marriage as an association. 1) You don't get unemployment benefits for life. There is usually a limit. It is a free ride. 2) Women today expect men to share work at home equally. Not every couple does that but many do and most women do return to their jobs a few years after child birth. So what exactly should the women be reimbursed for?

Like I said, implementations vary and I don't mean to defend them all, just the core idea. And I'm not even necessarily a supporter of alimony at all; a system where such spouses got actual unemployment and other state benefits instead is probably preferable.

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#149

Post by geezerjay »

koolba wrote: post #2

> The big factor, Harvard sociology professor Alexandra Killewald found, is the husband's employment status. For the past four decades, she discovered, husbands who aren’t employed full time have a 3.3 percent chance of getting divorced in any given year, compared with 2.5 percent for husbands employed full time. In other words, their marriages are one-third more likely to break up. Interesting. I'd be curious to see…

> Interesting. I'd be curious to see how the hours spent at work impact that number.

I'de more interested in comparing these percent changes with the sample's margin of error.

Extrapolating conclusions based on a deviation of 0.8% sounds an awful lot like grasping at straws.

Re: Harvard Study: Biggest Factor in Divorce Is Husband's Employment Status

#150

Post by Tomrn »

"Results from models with alternative cutpoints at 1980 and 1985 are shown in the online supplement."

Does anyone have a link to the online supliment?

Also would it be normal practice for a study like this to make the raw data aviailable? I'd love to take a look. As it's not totally clear how the 3.3% figure was arrived at.

This sentence struck me as a little odd: "For example, I use employment from 1985, reported in survey year 1986, to predict marital dissolution in 1987"

I would have thought unemployment in the actual year of divorce would be more important when looking for a corellation? Not looking at the husband's unemployemnt two years previously?

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