Two-parent households should be a policy goal

there is another approach besides just a higher minimum wage.

provide better education to everyone so that they can achieve higher qufications and get better jobs. that will solve the problem of minimum wage jobs because noone wants those anymore. (but, just to be clear, i am not against raising the minimum wage, just that by itself it's not really going to solve the problem)

Yes, 50% communal property is the default position. It is frequently modified to account for things like lower income (or the greater expense of having the children more). There's a reason why the story of the wife keeping the house and the man moving into a crummy apartment are practically cliche at this point.

> And it still doesn’t explain how women are incentivized to divorce, given that despite some of the things above, women still fare worse in divorce than men do.

Women file 70% of divorces. For college-educated women, it's nearly 90%. There's clearly an incentive for women. Men typically earn more income than women. Men have larger savings and retirement accounts. Men are more likely to have pensions. Men are more likely to own businesses and other assets. Divorce gives women a claim to all these things, even into the future, in ways that they would never have had in marriage.

Alimony and child support are both incentives for women (who typically earn less income and are more likely to not work at all). Even in 50/50 custody, the higher earning parent will pay child support.

You are right that fathers may still have nominally more income even after you account for alimony and child support transfers. But that doesn't mean it's still not an incentive. From a woman's perspective, she's earning the exact same income that she would be earning anyway, plus alimony and child support. It's still an incentive for her even if the man is earning nominally more. Just because Elon Musk and Tiger Woods are still wealthy after divorce, and likely still wealthier than their former spouses, the women definitely benefitted from those divorces and the men didn't.

If children were not involved, I would agree with you. But because children are negatively affected by divorce, there should be disincentives for divorce. Even valid reasons for divorce have alternatives. That may include substance abuse treatment. Job programs. Marital counseling. Parenting classes. There should be pressure for parents to work through difficult marriages instead of divorce when children are involved.

> preventing divorce on its own does not help fix broken households.

I agree, but incentivizing divorce doesn't improve things either. "Broken households" are statistically still better environments for children than single parent households. I also want to point out that between 1/3 and 1/2 of marriages end in divorce, and most of them are not "broken households".

> but this is not done by disincentivizing divorce

Marriage is hard. If you're presenting mothers with the choice of divorce with favorable custody, alimony, and child support rulings, or trying to work through a bad or difficult marriage for the children's sake, it is far easier to choose the divorce, and they do. Most divorces result in worse outcomes for the children. Period. That's why they should disincentivized, and certainly shouldn't be incentivized.

> "Money arguments are the second leading cause of divorce, behind infidelity"

Infidelity may be the leading cause, but it still makes up a minority of divorces today, and in many of those cases, it's the woman who is unfaithful and files for divorce anyway (again, incentives). If you look up the leading reasons for divorce aside from infidelity, they're nearly all various forms of not getting along well. Abuse makes up a very small portion of divorces.

> the infidelity issue is addressed by better education

If you really believe this, I have a bridge to sell you. People aren't cheating because they don't know it's wrong. Plenty of highly educated people cheat.

> and the money issue is addressed by financial support for parents.

Throwing money at parents isn't going to prevent divorce (and we want to prevent divorce), unless you're saying only married couples get the money.

> In Germany...

Divorce rates in Germany are similar to the US, so whatever you're doing, it's not working there either.

> disincentivizing divorce by not financially supporting the single parent is a very bad idea because it forces them to remain in an abusive relationship.

Again, a very, very, very small fraction of divorces are the result of abuse. It's a red herring that ignores the real problem -- the overwhelming majority of divorces occurring today result in worse outcomes for children. The state has a duty to protect children from the negative consequences of divorce, ergo, the state should disincentivize divorce.

Saying "lets get evidence and make things better" isn't a solution.

It's gobbledegook.