Post by The Big Daddy C-Master on Sept 28, 2015 18:43:31 GMT -5
www.forbes.com/sites/emmajohnson/2014/10/29/an-end-to-alimony-is-good-for-women/
I recently wrote Stay-at-Home-Mom Facing Divorce? Don’t Expect Alimony, about the recent trend of states revisiting their alimony laws. In many states lifetime alimony is being challenged, and how the growing numbers of (successful, professional) female judges have little sympathy for women who do not work outside the home, and are denying them alimony.
As the many comments point out, we are a long, long way from abolishing alimony. The reform is the result of petitions by groups who feel that alimony hurts men by making them pay an unfair sum to women they are no longer married to, and who have opportunity to be financially independent. Reform is just beginning.
But alimony — once considered a feminist coup since it supported women who otherwise had few financial opportunities — today hurts women.
This new shift away from guaranteed, lifelong maintenance is tough for women who did not prepare for the financial realities of divorce and chose to be dependent on their husbands. I sympathize with some of these women — those who have disabled children who require intense, and extensive care long beyond age 18, women who are mentally or physically disabled themselves, and women who are in their 70s and older and came of age when there truly was not economic gender equality.
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But for everyone else, I applaud this move to limit alimony. This is good for women, and what is good for women is good for families and the country. Here’s why:
An end of alimony would force each able-bodied person to be financially responsible for themselves . Suffragists and feminists before us fought bitterly (and joyously, one would hope) so you and I have financial and legal parity with men. We have a way to go, but for the most part in this country women have opportunity to support themselves. With opportunity comes responsibility. You choose to be financially dependent on someone else (like a husband), you take a risk. If that marriage ends and you have little career equity and low earning potential as a result, you must pay the consequences of the downside of that risk.
Take alimony out of the career-planning equation and we force women to take full responsibility for their careers and finances from the beginning of adulthood. This is critical if we are going to close the pay gap, which has little to do with workplace sexism, and more to do with women choosing lower-paying professions and stepping away from careers to devote to family life. This will also address the issue of female financial literacy. One study found that women’s involvement in household finances is directly proportionate to their contribution to family income. In other words, the more a woman contributes to the family finances, the more involved she is with managing them, a fact that would impact these alarming figures on female financial literacy from workplace wellness program firm Financial Finesse:
One-third of women feel confident about their investment allocation, vs half of men
66% of women report a general knowledge of investing, vs 85% of men
63% of women report having a handle on cash management, vs 78% of men
47% of women indicate that they have an emergency fund, vs 62% of men
Ending alimony would be a boon for family financial security, ringing a clear, screaming alarm that you must plan for the very real chance that both spouses’ income will be likely critical to the family wellbeing. What will it take for people to realize — and plan for — the fact that divorce rates have hovered around 50% for decades? And that is just the risk of divorce. Maintaining a career is about being a responsible member of your family. Even if you have the hottest, most committed marriage that lasts until the end of one of your lives, there are other realities you must plan for:
Unemployment. Nearly four out of five U.S. adults will face severe joblessness, near poverty or being on welfare. Men in recent history have been far more likely to suffer in an economic downturn. During the recession – from December 2007 to June 2009—men lost 5.4 million jobs while women lost 2.1 million. Again, this is a numbers game. Betting on your husband to support you and your family simply is not a good financial move.
Disability. Nearly 5% of all eligible adults receive disability insurance benefits.
Life. Crap happens. Accidents, psychotic breaks, natural disasters and fires. You have no idea what is in store. So you do smart things. Like keep a career going, which boosts your family’s financial security by 2x at least.
One of the most compelling reasons to incentivize women to maintain their careers is that doing so makes marriages stronger and diminishes the likelihood of divorce . Researchers at UCLA and Utrecht University in the Netherlands found that the happiest marriages are those in which both spouses are engaged in careers they enjoy. In their book, Getting to 50/50, Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober report that a marriage in which both parties earn about the same and do about the same amount of housework and childcare have a chance of divorce 48 percent lower than average.
But perhaps the biggest reason no alimony is great for women is that without it, each party is allowed to move on with their lives, which is the whole point of divorce. Living off a check from an ex only keeps you emotionally embroiled in a marriage that is now over.
I have a friend who abandoned a thriving small business she’d built for 15 years when she married a successful New York City tax attorney and had a baby. The marriage ended. He pays her a sum each month that keeps her in an Upper East Side two-bedroom, three-story townhouse, while she struggles to rebuild her business. “Tell your readers to never stop working,” she told me recently. “There is nothing worse than being dependent on a man who you are trying to separate from.”
I recently wrote Stay-at-Home-Mom Facing Divorce? Don’t Expect Alimony, about the recent trend of states revisiting their alimony laws. In many states lifetime alimony is being challenged, and how the growing numbers of (successful, professional) female judges have little sympathy for women who do not work outside the home, and are denying them alimony.
As the many comments point out, we are a long, long way from abolishing alimony. The reform is the result of petitions by groups who feel that alimony hurts men by making them pay an unfair sum to women they are no longer married to, and who have opportunity to be financially independent. Reform is just beginning.
But alimony — once considered a feminist coup since it supported women who otherwise had few financial opportunities — today hurts women.
This new shift away from guaranteed, lifelong maintenance is tough for women who did not prepare for the financial realities of divorce and chose to be dependent on their husbands. I sympathize with some of these women — those who have disabled children who require intense, and extensive care long beyond age 18, women who are mentally or physically disabled themselves, and women who are in their 70s and older and came of age when there truly was not economic gender equality.
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But for everyone else, I applaud this move to limit alimony. This is good for women, and what is good for women is good for families and the country. Here’s why:
An end of alimony would force each able-bodied person to be financially responsible for themselves . Suffragists and feminists before us fought bitterly (and joyously, one would hope) so you and I have financial and legal parity with men. We have a way to go, but for the most part in this country women have opportunity to support themselves. With opportunity comes responsibility. You choose to be financially dependent on someone else (like a husband), you take a risk. If that marriage ends and you have little career equity and low earning potential as a result, you must pay the consequences of the downside of that risk.
Take alimony out of the career-planning equation and we force women to take full responsibility for their careers and finances from the beginning of adulthood. This is critical if we are going to close the pay gap, which has little to do with workplace sexism, and more to do with women choosing lower-paying professions and stepping away from careers to devote to family life. This will also address the issue of female financial literacy. One study found that women’s involvement in household finances is directly proportionate to their contribution to family income. In other words, the more a woman contributes to the family finances, the more involved she is with managing them, a fact that would impact these alarming figures on female financial literacy from workplace wellness program firm Financial Finesse:
One-third of women feel confident about their investment allocation, vs half of men
66% of women report a general knowledge of investing, vs 85% of men
63% of women report having a handle on cash management, vs 78% of men
47% of women indicate that they have an emergency fund, vs 62% of men
Ending alimony would be a boon for family financial security, ringing a clear, screaming alarm that you must plan for the very real chance that both spouses’ income will be likely critical to the family wellbeing. What will it take for people to realize — and plan for — the fact that divorce rates have hovered around 50% for decades? And that is just the risk of divorce. Maintaining a career is about being a responsible member of your family. Even if you have the hottest, most committed marriage that lasts until the end of one of your lives, there are other realities you must plan for:
Unemployment. Nearly four out of five U.S. adults will face severe joblessness, near poverty or being on welfare. Men in recent history have been far more likely to suffer in an economic downturn. During the recession – from December 2007 to June 2009—men lost 5.4 million jobs while women lost 2.1 million. Again, this is a numbers game. Betting on your husband to support you and your family simply is not a good financial move.
Disability. Nearly 5% of all eligible adults receive disability insurance benefits.
Life. Crap happens. Accidents, psychotic breaks, natural disasters and fires. You have no idea what is in store. So you do smart things. Like keep a career going, which boosts your family’s financial security by 2x at least.
One of the most compelling reasons to incentivize women to maintain their careers is that doing so makes marriages stronger and diminishes the likelihood of divorce . Researchers at UCLA and Utrecht University in the Netherlands found that the happiest marriages are those in which both spouses are engaged in careers they enjoy. In their book, Getting to 50/50, Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober report that a marriage in which both parties earn about the same and do about the same amount of housework and childcare have a chance of divorce 48 percent lower than average.
But perhaps the biggest reason no alimony is great for women is that without it, each party is allowed to move on with their lives, which is the whole point of divorce. Living off a check from an ex only keeps you emotionally embroiled in a marriage that is now over.
I have a friend who abandoned a thriving small business she’d built for 15 years when she married a successful New York City tax attorney and had a baby. The marriage ended. He pays her a sum each month that keeps her in an Upper East Side two-bedroom, three-story townhouse, while she struggles to rebuild her business. “Tell your readers to never stop working,” she told me recently. “There is nothing worse than being dependent on a man who you are trying to separate from.”