Sciences Po, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement (OSC), CNRS, Paris, France; Nuffield College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
University of Cologne, Germany.
Soc Sci Res. 2021 May;96:102541. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2021.102541. Epub 2021 Mar 15.
Studies have documented the negative association between divorce and women's economic wellbeing in several countries. Less is known about whether the effects of divorce on women's economic wellbeing, and their persistency, vary by family size. We present the first comprehensive assessment of how the short-term and medium-term economic consequences of divorce vary by family size. Using data from the US (PSID) and between-within random-effects models, we estimate changes in women's gross household income up to six years following divorce, stratified by the number of children in the household in the year of divorce. We add a comparative perspective using a harmonized set of socio-economic panel surveys from Australia (HILDA), Germany (GSOEP), and the UK (BHPS). Our findings demonstrate that the household incomes of women with three or more children decrease most drastically in the US, Germany, and the UK. In these countries, divorce widens the economic gap between child-rich households and those with no or few children. While childless women's incomes do not recover in the medium-term, incomes of mothers in Germany, the UK, and to a lesser extent the US partially recuperate. We demonstrate that differences in labor market attachment, and not remarriage, partially account for the family size differences we observe.
研究记录了在多个国家离婚与女性经济福祉之间的负面关系。但离婚对女性经济福祉的影响及其持续性是否因家庭规模而异，这方面的了解则较少。我们首次全面评估了离婚对家庭规模的短期和中期经济后果的影响。我们使用来自美国（PSID）的数据集和跨期与同期随机效应模型，根据离婚当年家庭中孩子的数量，对离婚后六年内女性家庭总收入的变化进行了分层估计。我们还使用来自澳大利亚（HILDA）、德国（GSOEP）和英国（BHPS）的一套协调的社会经济面板调查数据进行了比较。我们的研究结果表明，美、德、英三国中拥有三个或更多孩子的女性家庭收入下降幅度最大。在这些国家，离婚扩大了子女多的家庭和没有或几乎没有孩子的家庭之间的经济差距。虽然无子女女性的收入在中期内没有恢复，但德国、英国和美国的母亲收入部分恢复。我们证明，劳动力市场参与度的差异，而不是再婚，部分解释了我们观察到的家庭规模差异。
