'These boots are made for walking': why most divorce filers are women
Abstract and Figures
Because of the financial and social hardship faced after divorce, most people assume that generally husbands have instigated divorce since the introduction of no-fault divorce. Yet women file for divorce and are often the instigators of separation, despite a deep attachment to their children and the evidence that many divorces harm children. Furthermore, divorced women in large numbers reveal that they are happier than they were while married. They report relief and certainty that they were right in leaving their marriages. This fundamental puzzle suggests that the incentives to divorce require a reexamination, and that the forces affecting the net benefits from marriage may be quite complicated, and perhaps asymmetric between men and women. This paper considers women's filing as rational behavior, based on spouses' relative power in the marriage, their opportunities following divorce, and their anticipation of custody.
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... These legal actions are objective, observable components of the divorce process and often the aspects that are most final. Across time, in heterosexual marriages wives have generally been the spouse who files for the divorce, with rates around two thirds (Brinig & Allen, 2000;Kalmijn & Poortman, 2006). Thus, it appears that women take a more active role in what could be perceived of as legal actions toward dissolution. ...
... This is a novel finding because there is a growing body of literature suggesting that divorce initiators are women the majority (roughly two thirds) of the time (Kalmijn & Poortman, 2006). This rate of initiation for women replicates findings of Brinig and Allen (2000) when specifically indicating the proportion of wife-filed divorce cases (i.e., with some variation among states, wife-filed cases are slightly above two thirds). ...
Objective
The goal of the present study was to determine the psychometric properties of an extended inventory that assesses the multiple facets of divorce initiation drawn from the existing research, the Revised Divorce Initiation Inventory (DII‐R).
Background
Previous research indicates the role of each partner in the initiation of divorce has relevant implications for emotional and psychological well‐being after the divorce. Much of this research was conducted with a single‐item, categorical assessment of initiator status (e.g., who initiated the divorce?). However, recent studies highlight the complexity of divorce initiation as a multidimensional concept.
Method
A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted with a sample of 408 divorced individuals. Analyses to explore measurement invariance between men and women and construct validity were also conducted.
Results
Findings indicated a four‐factor model (i.e., Legal, Separation, Desire, Responsibility) of 12 items was a good fit to the data. Factor loadings and intercepts were equal across groups.
Conclusion
Divorce initiation is a multifaceted construct that includes dimensions related to separation, legal, desire, and responsibility that should not be measured with a single‐item assessment.
Implications
The DII‐R supports the comprehensive synthesis of ongoing divorce initiation research that may be used to inform clinical practice to intervene in specific areas shown to affect the decision to divorce.
... It 16 This is how Macfarlane (2012a, p. 235) calls the above mentioned ECFR fatwa. 17 Statistics from the USA indicate that throughout most of the 19th century about 60% of divorces were filed by women and that the proportion today remains slightly above two-thirds (Brinig & Allen, 2000). French and Belgian statistics display the same trend of women initiating the majority of non-consensual divorces (Chaussebourg et al., 2009;Institut national de statistique (Belgium), 2006). ...
Little is known about the (para)legal practices of European Muslims. This dissertation studies women’s rights in the context of family disputes within Belgian Muslim families. Based primarily on the analysis of interview narratives, its main goal is to better understand the emergence of rights consciousness in this context, so as to allow for an empirically grounded discussion of the relationship between human rights, gender and legal pluralism. The most important challenge in terms of human rights was found to be the non-take up of legally protected rights. The research found that the harmonisation of their multiple subject positions is a key factor enabling believing Muslim women to self-position as rights-bearing persons and make (legal) claims. This means that they need to see themselves not only as rights-bearing citizens, but also as good Muslimas, whose claims can be justified by religious norms. Access to (normative) discourses endorsing this view is crucial.
Why do people fall in love? Does passion fade with time? What makes for a happy, healthy relationship? This introduction to relationship science follows the lifecycle of a relationship – from attraction and initiation, to the hard work of relationship maintenance, to dissolution and ways to strengthen a relationship. Designed for advanced undergraduates studying psychology, communication or family studies, this textbook presents a fresh, diversity-infused approach to relationship science. It includes real-world examples and critical-thinking questions, callout boxes that challenge students to make connections, and researcher interviews that showcase the many career paths of relationship scientists. Article Spotlights reveal cutting-edge methods, while Diversity and Inclusion boxes celebrate the variety found in human love and connection. Throughout the book, students see the application of theory and come to recognize universal themes in relationships as well as the nuances of many findings. Instructors can access lecture slides, an instructor manual, and test banks.
Previous research of gender differences in power has largely focused on the public domain (e.g., leadership positions), and to a lesser extent power on the private domain (e.g., power in private relationships), where people may perceive these domains to be more or less important in their lives. We studied gender differences in preference weighted power (PWP) in different domains by weighting the perceived power by the perceived importance in life in a large set of Twitter messages from the United States (N = 9,286,471). The results showed that men (tweets including "he") are semantically related to general power, and women (tweets including "she") are related to importance in life, which in previous research have been connected to the public and private domains, respectively. Importantly, women had higher PWP than men. In conclusion, men are perceived to have more general power and women more PWP in U.S. tweets.
Michelson's analysis of almost 150,000 divorce trials reveals routine and egregious violations of China's own laws upholding the freedom of divorce, gender equality, and the protection of women's physical security. Using 'big data' computational techniques to scrutinize cases covering 2009–2016 from all 252 basic-level courts in two Chinese provinces, Henan and Zhejiang, Michelson reveals that women have borne the brunt of a dramatic intensification since the mid-2000s of a decades-long practice of denying divorce requests. This book takes the reader upstream to the institutional sources of China's clampdown on divorce and downstream to its devastating and highly gendered human toll, showing how judges in an overburdened court system clear their oppressive dockets at the expense of women's lawful rights and interests. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Chinese courts, judicial decision-making, family law, gender violence, and the limits and possibilities of the globalization of law.This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The institution of marriage is at a crossroads. Across most of the industrialized world, unmarried cohabitation and nonmarital births have skyrocketed while marriage rates are at record lows. These trends mask a new, idealized vision of marriage as a marker of success as well as a growing class divide in childbearing behavior: the children of better educated, wealthier individuals continue to be born into relatively stable marital unions while the children of less educated, poorer individuals are increasingly born and raised in more fragile, nonmarital households. The interdisciplinary approach offered by this edited volume provides tools to inform the debate and to assist policy makers in resolving questions about marriage at a critical juncture. Drawing on the expertise of social scientists and legal scholars, the book will be a key text for anyone who seeks to understand marriage as a social institution and to evaluate proposals for marriage reform.
The institution of marriage is at a crossroads. Across most of the industrialized world, unmarried cohabitation and nonmarital births have skyrocketed while marriage rates are at record lows. These trends mask a new, idealized vision of marriage as a marker of success as well as a growing class divide in childbearing behavior: the children of better educated, wealthier individuals continue to be born into relatively stable marital unions while the children of less educated, poorer individuals are increasingly born and raised in more fragile, nonmarital households. The interdisciplinary approach offered by this edited volume provides tools to inform the debate and to assist policy makers in resolving questions about marriage at a critical juncture. Drawing on the expertise of social scientists and legal scholars, the book will be a key text for anyone who seeks to understand marriage as a social institution and to evaluate proposals for marriage reform.
The analysis of the social variables that influence the allocation of custody has become an increasingly recurrent phenomenon under study. The present article, using the push and pull theoretical approach and focusing on the case of Spain, aims to examine how these variables influence the allocation of the shared modality, distinguishing between sociodemographic (characteristics of marriage) on the one hand and contextual (structural-economic and public opinion) on the other. The methodology used to study the data has been quantitative, using multiple linear regression as an analysis technique. The created database has been generated from the Statistics on Annulments, Separations and Divorces of the National Statistics Institute (INE, in the Spanish acronym) and from different rates obtained from the INE and the Sociological Research Center. The main conclusion is that although the two regression models obtained explain the allocation of joint custody, it is the set of contextual variables and specifically the gross domestic product of each autonomous community that have the greatest explanatory power.
Significance
In economic and sociological theory of divorce, the link between divorce consequences and the decision to divorce is central: A couple divorces if at least one spouse expects to improve their life by initiating divorce. The present study provides empirical evidence in support of this theoretical link: Separation initiators become better off in terms of subjective well-being after a separation, whereas noninitiators become worse off, before they eventually experience a full recovery. Because separations are predominantly initiated by only one partner, this finding suggests that one partner typically benefits from the separation (the initiator), while the other is disadvantaged (the noninitiator). Accordingly, analyses of average divorce trajectories convey only limited information about the causal effects of divorce on individuals’ well-being.
