One in four mothers and one in eight fathers are affected by a lack of money after a separation. The courts require that divorced women increase their workload.
Angelina Jolie, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Madonna: They all divorced their marriages. Celebrity relationships are particularly likely to fail, the British Marriage Foundation has found. The risk of divorce is greatest among rock musicians, followed by actors. Billionaires are almost the norm: “only” one in two marriages breaks up.
When celebrities break up, the personal drama usually plays out in front of the public eye: secret love affairs, insults, the fight for the children. The stars in it are all too human. On the other hand, they have the advantage that their divorce rarely leads to financial difficulties. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had to pay a severance payment of $38 billion in 2019 – and still remained the richest person in the world.
The bill looks completely different for ordinary people: especially if they have children, the separation puts a big hole in their coffers. At least every third couple with children under 25 lives separately. Across the population, the divorce rate reaches 40 percent.
According to a federal survey, the poverty rate for single-parent households with children is 13 percent. This is significantly more than among married families, where only 4 percent are considered poor. But these figures only show the tip of the iceberg: Even for medium-sized companies, the separation is associated with a painful financial decline. Likewise, the different burdens on the genders are not visible in these statistics. A research report prepared by the Bass office last year on behalf of the federal government now provides a detailed insight for the first time.
According to this, the mother’s average income drops very sharply immediately after the separation, namely from 57,000 to 38,000 francs. After this initial shock, income recovers again. The father’s maintenance payments ensure this. These amount to an average of 14,000 francs, although in some cases they may not be paid. In addition, many women are increasing their employment – provided they have a job that can be combined with family obligations. But two years after the separation, their income is still 9,000 francs lower than before in the shared household.
The co-author of the study, Severin Bischof, says: “Our analysis shows that the person who takes on the majority of childcare in the family also suffers the most financially from the separation. As a rule, these are women.”
While the mother’s average income falls due to the separation, the father’s average income tends to increase – according to the study, it rises from 57,000 to 63,000 francs. Important to understand: This number, which is based on the tax data of thousands of households, corresponds to the so-called equivalent income. This measurement method also takes into account the size of the household – it is therefore a per capita income, with children being included at a lower factor than adults.
What counts for financial well-being is not just what income a household receives, but also how many people this money has to last for. So if the children live with the mother, which is usually the case, the mother also has to shoulder higher expenses: she needs more living space and has higher costs for furniture, food or clothing. Conversely, the father’s equivalent income can even increase slightly due to a separation if, apart from paying maintenance, he only has to care for a single household.
Mothers are twice as likely to be in precarious situations
This unequal burden is also clear in the study by Severin Bischof: “According to our assessment, the economic situation two years after the separation can be classified as precarious for 26 percent of the mothers. For fathers, this proportion is only half as high at 13 percent.” Precarious means income less than 60 percent of average.
Social welfare statistics also confirm that mothers are more likely to suffer from financial difficulties after a separation. At 16 percent, the proportion of women receiving social assistance is around twice as high as that of separated fathers. “The reason for this gap lies in the different employment histories,” explains Bischof. “The key decision is made when the first child is born: If the mother decides to significantly reduce her workload or quit her job completely, this will lead to greater inequality in the event of a separation.”
According to statistics, every second woman reduces her workload by at least half after giving birth. Fathers, on the other hand, keep their income stable. “The longer the mother takes a break from work and the lower her workload is after returning to work, the greater her risk of poverty after the separation,” says the economist Bischof. This applies especially to couples who earn little: they divorce more often than average.
Courts are changing their minds
The question of how a divorce affects the finances is currently of particular interest. Court practice has changed significantly in recent years. Until now, the judiciary has primarily adhered to the traditional role model, according to which the husband works while the wife devotes herself to the household and the children.
If the court had recognized a marriage as “life-defining”, which was the case with children or after ten years, the wife could assert her right to maintain the previous standard of living after the divorce. The principle also applied that women who did not work during the marriage could not earn their own living after a separation from the age of 45.
The agreement was: Wives forego a professional career and, conversely, they should be financially secure in the event of a divorce. There were also various improvements in pension provision: with the AHV revision of 1997, the federal government introduced child-care credits, and the income subject to AHV was divided equally between both spouses. The new divorce law from 2000 also led to the splitting of assets in the pension fund.
However, the classic division of roles, consisting of the sole breadwinner and the housewife, is on the decline these days. More and more women want to stay working while fathers take more active care of their children. In order to take this change into account, the federal government introduced new maintenance law in 2017. The legislature wants to promote more balanced childcare by both parents. In particular, men can request that the court consider alternating custody after the separation.
The lawyer and author Margherita Bortolani-Slongo welcomes this. This puts the child’s well-being more at the center. “Before 2017, a separation often meant that the children were placed under the sole care of the mother. This severely limited the contact between the child and the father, which was a major disadvantage for the child’s development.”
Divorce leads to higher workloads
However, according to Bortolani-Slongo, the changed legal situation requires parents to rethink things. Previously, the primacy of mothers applied in principle when allocating care. “Slowly but surely this principle is beginning to waver in court practice: fathers who are present in the children’s everyday lives and are involved in looking after them fortunately have better chances today. But they will also be held more accountable for this.”
In practice, the new maintenance law has already left a clear mark: the courts expect separated or divorced mothers to increasingly earn their own living. The maxim of self-sufficiency also applies to the calculation of child and childcare maintenance since the Federal Court issued the so-called school level model: If the youngest child begins compulsory school, the mother is expected to work 50 percent. From high school it is already 80 percent and from the age of 16 it is 100 percent.
The Bass office also found in its study that women significantly increase their workload after a divorce. 15 years after the birth of their first child, a divorced mother earns an average of 46,000 francs a year. Without a divorce, however, the income is significantly lower at 26,000 francs.
“When planning a family, women in particular need to know that in the event of a separation, they will no longer be able to rely on their ex-husband as they used to,” says Severin Bischof. “It is all the more important that they keep an eye on their career prospects when they become mothers.”
This also applies to pension provision: one in four divorced pensioners is dependent on supplementary benefits, while the proportion of other pensioners is only 12 percent. Bishop also points out that marriage greatly improves social security compared to cohabitation. This is also followed by the majority: If only 65 percent of couples are married before the birth of their first child, the proportion rises to 87 percent two years later.
Anyone who gets married expects the marriage to last forever. However, couples should be prepared if things turn out differently. Or as the singer Madonna once put it: “I asked myself that existential question that comes to mind when you’ve been married for a long time: What is perfect love?” Over time, more and more cracks appeared in the foundation and the romanticism disappeared. “You think: This is not what I imagined. And: How much am I willing to sacrifice?”