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US children of divorce have reduced earnings, study says (abcnews.go.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago

After a divorce, a household's income typically is halved as a family splits into two households, and it struggles to recover that lost income over the ensuing decade. Families after divorce also tend to move to neighborhoods with lower incomes that offer reduced economic opportunities, and children are farther away from their non-custodial parent, according to the working paper by economists at the University of California, Merced; the U.S. Census Bureau; and the University of Maryland.

The three events — loss of financial resources, a decline in neighborhood quality and missing parental involvement because of distance or an increased workload required to make up for lost income — accounted for 25% to 60% of the impact divorce has on children’s outcomes, the study said.

Like most things, this is a social safety net system thing...

Or rather lack of social safety net thing.

It also doesn't mean "staying together for the kids" is always correct either.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Safety nets are there, it is just that the nets don't provide equality between families. If you are born into a family with parents who divorce, that's a hardship the government cannot entirely protect you from.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Like most things, this is a social safety net system thing…

Or rather lack of social safety net thing.

I'm not understanding your argument. If the article was saying that divorces lead the two households to live in poverty, then I could see your point, but there's nothing like that in the article.

What social safety net items are you saying would mitigate a halving of household income (x2), lower income neighborhoods, and distance from the other parent?

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Better funding of higher education, lower costs of living in general for lower income people. Better public transportation as well.

That tries to at least address each of your concerns.

[-] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago

In the context of the article it doesn't say the newly divorced are moving in to "low income neighborhoods", it looks like its talking about relative position, "lower income" than they were before. As in, if a couple together had a household income of $150,000/year, they'd each move into a neighborhood where the household income may be $75,000/year.

Better funding of higher education,

I assume you mean better education which would increase income. That wouldn't have any effect in the context of the article. It would mean our theoretical divorced couple in my example above instead would perhaps have a $300,000/year household income, and when divorced, they'd move into a $150,000/year income neighborhood. Yes, it would be better than a $75,000/year income but the impact of divorce in the sense of would still be present in the point of the article that reduced economic opportunities would still be more present in a $150k neighborhood than a $300k one. So that problem would still exist.

lower costs of living in general for lower income people.

Unless we're talking about subsidized housing (which would unambiguously be the social safety net), what social safety net exists for middle class people which lowers the cost of living, which appears to be the target of the article? Again, the article isn't talking about poverty. While the article is talking about the USA, but I'm willing to accept examples from other nations. What is an example of a social safety net that directly targets the cost of living for non-poverty populations?

Better public transportation as well.

This one is really a stretch to applying at all to this discussion. Of the three points the article the closest one I see applying (but not applying) would be the "missing parental involvement because of distance". I'd guess one of the things that newly separated parents have the least of is: time. Great robust public transportation can be cheap and far reaching, but its very rare its considered the "fast" option. I'm guessing the "missing parental involvement because of distance" isn't saying the non-custodial parent can't get to the child, or the child can't get to the non-custodial parent, but that they don't have time to do so. Being in the same household means there is no time penalty to seeing the child because you're living in the same space. A newly physically distant household from the child means time to make that same connection and parental exposure happening. From that, I'm not seeing how better public transportation would improve the outcomes of children that have divorced parents.

That tries to at least address each of your concerns.

I appreciate you weighing in. I take it from your statement here that you also saw at least some difficulty tying the argument that social safety net improvements would have a large beneficial outcome on children of divorce. If I've read you wrong, feel free to correct me.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Unfortunately for most people, income is not evenly distributed. Nearly half of US households make <$75k, and less than a quarter make >$150k.
On top of that, divorce rates are higher at lower income levels.

It is true that improvements to the social safety net and general services like education and transportation will not benefit every child of divorced parents equally, but the proportion households that would benefit from safety net and general service improvements if their income was split in two is significant. And those benefits would be most dramatic and most concentrated where most needed.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Unfortunately for most people, income is not evenly distributed. Nearly half of US households make <$75k, and less than a quarter make >$150k.

On top of that, divorce rates are higher at lower income levels.

I am not disputing either of those statements, but they don't seem to pertain to the points the paper was making.

It is true that improvements to the social safety net and general services like education and transportation will not benefit every child of divorced parents equally, but the proportion households that would benefit from safety net and general service improvements if their income was split in two is significant. And those benefits would be most dramatic and most concentrated where most needed.

You're arguing a completely different topic. I'm not saying your argument is invalid, but that's not addressing the question I raised. The paper cited pointed out the following three main points:

"The three events — loss of financial resources, a decline in neighborhood quality and missing parental involvement because of distance or an increased workload required to make up for lost income — accounted for 25% to 60% of the impact divorce has on children’s outcomes, the study said."

@givesomefucks said "Like most things, this is a social safety net system thing…". I'm looking specifically to how social safety net would fix the three main causes cited in the paper.

The 69 page paper itself contains the word "poverty" only one time, and even then when it was citing the title of a cited source. If income or income distrubution were sizable contributors to the negative outcomes the paper found, I would imagine they would have included them in there list of "three things". They didn't. I take that to mean that nearly all children of divorce suffer these three negative consequences and that income distribution doesn't shield rich kids from them either.

So thats why I'm looking for the argument that @givesomefucks was apparently making (and upvoted by others) that the social safety net lacking is the cause of the paper's three determined detriments. I'm not seeing it in the article and I'm not seeing comments here explain it either yet with any of these responses.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Too many people are having kids and should never have become parents. Boomers flooded the world with their negligent parenting.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I guess the parents' recognition that their children are likely to have disappointing future earnings puts stress on the relationship, making divorce more probable. Those parents whose kids are succeeding in school don't worry so much the children will put a financial strain on them in adulthood.

this post was submitted on 26 May 2025

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