Divorce Reform and Gender Justice
![handle is hein.journals/nclr67 and id is 1135 raw text is: DIVORCE REFORM AND GENDER JUSTICE
JANA B. SINGERt
The modern shift from fault-based to no-fault divorce has disap-
pointed those who expected the no-fault system to eliminate economic
inequality between divorced women and men. The fact that women and
their dependent children invariably experience economic hardship after
a divorce has caused Lenore Weitzman and other commentators to ro-
manticize the good old days offault-based divorce. Professor Singer
attacks the logic of this nostalgia by demonstrationg that women were
not better off under the fault-based system. She then proposes an invest-
ment partnership model of post-divorce allocation which would insure a
fair result for both spouses.
Close to fifty percent of American marriages now end in divorce.' Each
year more married couples across the country end their unions in dissolution
than in death.2 Experts predict that if current divorce rates hold steady, almost
half of all children born in the 1980s will spend at least part of their childhood in
a household headed by a divorced parent.3 For ninety percent of these children,
that single parent will be their mother.4
These statistics underscore the tremendous impact of divorce on American
family and economic life. In particular, decisions about how resources are allo-
cated at the time of divorce profoundly affect the economic opportunities and
material well-being of both this generation and the next. Allocation decisions
have a striking aggregate impact as well: households headed by divorced and
separated mothers constitute the fastest growing segment of the American
poor.5
t Assistant Professor of Law, University of Maryland Law School. The author thanks Karen
Czapanskiy, Bill Reynolds, Kathy Vaughns, Marley Weiss, and Robin West for their generous and
helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
1. Welch & Price-Bonham, A Decade of No-fault Revisited: California, Georgia, and Washing-
ton, 45 J. MARRIAGE & FAM. 411, 411 (1983).
2. I. ELLMAN, P. KURTZ & A. STANTON, FAMILY LAW: CASES, TEXT, PROBLEMS 207-08
(1986).
3. Wallerstein, Children of Divorce: An Overview, 4 BEHAV. ScI. & L. 105, 107 (1986); Welch
& Price-Bonham, supra note 1, at 411.
4. Spanier & Glick, Marital Instability in the United States: Some Correlates and Recent
Changes, 30 FAM. REL. 329, 332 (1981); Welch & Price-Bonham, supra note 1, at 411. As of 1986,
24% of all children under 18 were living in single parent families. An additional 9% of children
were living with one biological parent and one stepparent. SELECT COMM. ON CHILDREN, YOUTH
AND FAMILIES, 100TH CONG., 1ST SESS., U.S. CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES: CURRENT CON-
DITIONS AND RECENT TRENDS 12 (Comm. Print 1987) [hereinafter SELECT COMM. ON CHILDREN].
5. Ehrenreich & Piven, The Feminization of Poverty: When the Family Wage System Breaks
Down, 31 DISSENT 162, 162 (1984); see Pearce & McAdoo, Women And Children: Alone and in
Poverty, in FAMILIES AND CHANGE: SOCIAL NEEDS AND PUBLIC POLICY 161 (R. Genovese ed.
1984). Approximately two-thirds of the more than 13 million female-headed families in the United
States are headed by women who are divorced or separated from their husbands. Less than one
third are headed by never-married mothers. SELECT COMM. ON CHILDREN, supra note 4, at 14.
More than 50% of the children living in these female-headed households are living below the pov-](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nclr67&div=54&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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