Duncan G J, Hoffman S D
Demography. 1985 Nov;22(4):485-97.
A close look at the income flows in the years following a divorce or separation reveals marked differences in the distribution of effects. The economic consequences of divorce are especially adverse for women. In most cases, children remain with the mother, who usually has considerably lower potential labor market earnings than her former husband, partly because her responsibilities for the children are likely to reduce her labor supply and may have limited her past human capital investments. Alimony and child support are the principal mechanisms for transfers from the ex-husband to the ex-wife, but payments are rarely frequent or sizeable enough to make up for an appreciable amount of the labor income lost through the departure of the ex-husband. Human capital investments on the part of the mother have a modest effect on her economic situation in the years following the divorce. Most men who divorce or separate are immediately better off because they retain most of their labor incomes, typically do not pay large amounts of alimony and child support to their ex-wives, and no longer have to provide for the level of needs associated with their former families. Much more important than growth in the ex-wife's own labor income is the role of a new husband's labor income upon her remarriage. More than half of the white women remarry within five years following a divorce or separation; the comparable fraction for black women is less than half. An interesting question is whether the currently unmarried would enjoy the same kind of economic benefits, were they to remarry, as women who have remarried. Estimates from a model of the new husband's labor income, adjusted for selection bias inherent in the process of remarriage, indicate that the currently unmarried would probably not gain equal benefits if they were to remarry. The expected labor income of potential husbands of black women averages only about $5000--a modest amount when compared with the alternatives available to these women.
仔细观察离婚或分居后几年的收入流动情况，会发现影响分布存在显著差异。离婚的经济后果对女性尤其不利。在大多数情况下，孩子会留在母亲身边，而母亲的潜在劳动力市场收入通常比前夫低得多，部分原因是她对孩子的责任可能会减少她的劳动力供给，并且可能限制了她过去的人力资本投资。 alimony和子女抚养费是前夫向前妻转移财产的主要机制，但支付频率很少，数额也不足以弥补因前夫离开而损失的可观劳动收入。离婚后几年，母亲的人力资本投资对其经济状况的影响不大。大多数离婚或分居的男性经济状况会立即改善，因为他们保留了大部分劳动收入，通常不必向前妻支付大量 alimony和子女抚养费，也不再需要满足与原家庭相关的需求水平。对前妻经济状况改善来说，新丈夫的劳动收入所起的作用比她自身劳动收入的增长更为重要。超过一半的白人女性在离婚或分居后的五年内再婚；黑人女性的这一比例不到一半。一个有趣的问题是，目前未婚的女性如果再婚，是否会享受到与再婚女性相同的经济利益。根据一个考虑了再婚过程中固有选择偏差的新丈夫劳动收入模型估算，目前未婚的女性如果再婚，可能无法获得同等的利益。黑人女性潜在丈夫的预期劳动收入平均仅约5000美元——与这些女性可选择的其他收入相比，这是一个不算多的数额。
