iDivorceForms.com's Online Divorce Blog

We're here to make your life easier to manage and to help you begin your new start.

The financial impacts of a divorce can be quite staggering to both parties, but history has shown that for women it is usually much worse. While it’s true that women are closing the income gap and besting their male counterparts in education, and that the future is very bright professionally, women still feel the brunt of things worse for the following factors.

1. When it comes to child rearing, they’re usually the ones who give up work. 

Any break in one’s employment history cannot be seen as anything but a setback. And when a woman gives birth to a child, she is much more likely to drop her job in order to stay home and help raise her son or daughter before the child is old enough to be in school. That’s a four- to six-year layoff, and so when she heads back to work, she’s having to compete with others that don’t have a break in work experience. And while one could ask the question, “Why does she put up with it, why not make the man quit work?,” the unfortunate reality is that that would be highly impractical because there is still an earnings gap between men and women. In other words, doing that would often mean dropping the higher paying of the two jobs.

2. They often suffer from a knowledge gap that comes from being out of the workforce for so long. 

Examine the lives of the most successful people, and one thing becomes clear: rich people never stop learning. But when a woman leaves the workforce to stay at home with her child, she can’t keep up with the changes in her industry in the same way that she could if she were still working. So when she does finally go back to work — as is often the case after a divorce — she has to keep up with the present and make up ground for the time she lost.

3. Women usually are the primary caregivers to their children after divorce.

While there are certainly some exceptions and there are men capable of doing it, for the most part, women have been placed in the role of primary caregiver by the courts, so that means any time their son or daughter gets sick, they have to miss work — critical to wage earners — and despite the fact that many get child support, it’s often not enough to handle the onslaught of medical expenses that come with a child.

Hopefully the trends toward closing the income gap will continue, and one day women won’t have to suffer the same disadvantages that they currently do en masse. Until that time, if you are a woman heading toward divorce, try to stay as plugged in to your industry in addition to the daily demands of childcare. Should you have to reenter the workforce, you’ll be glad you did.


Home | File for Divorce | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer

© 2016 iDivorceForms.com, All Rights Reserved.

Back to Top