Overview

Divorce rates in Western societies have been rising, with estimates of between one-third and one-half of all marriages breaking down. Many of these marriages will involve children.

How private can and should parenting be? Who pays for the children - parents or the state? Are child support payments adequate? Are the hardships of divorce equally distribute between parents? How well do non-resident fathers fare was parents over the years? How long-lasting are the consequences of divorce?

Settling Down is a unique longitudinal study tracing how people attempt to improve their lives after divorce. Drawing on 500 in-depth interviews at two points in time, it follows the lives of divorced parents of dependent children for five to eight years after separation.

Events such as repartnering and reparenting, losing, gaining or changing employment, moving house and caring for children as they grow to be adolescents are all documented, and the impacts of these events on people's well being are analyzed.

This work goes beyond discussing trends. It considers the consequences of divorce in the light of changes in the economy of marriage, and suggests ways of ameliorating distress and establishing fairer means of distributing the inevitable hardships of divorce.

Contents

• Foreword
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on the Authors
• 1 Parents, Divorce and Economic Recovery
  Kathleen Funder
  • Sources of Data
  • Individuality
  • Parents, Autonomy and Commitment
  • Public and Private Costs
  • Gender
  • Plan of the Book
  • Findings
• 2 Drawing a Long bow on Marriage and Divorce
  Kathleen Funder and Margaret Harrison
  • Historical and International Overview
  • Marriage Breakdown-Demographic Overview
  • Economic Options, Expectations and Marriage Breakdown 
  • International Trends in Marriage and Divorce after World War II
  • Current Economics of Marriage and Work
  • Legal Responses to Social Change
  • AIFS Economic Consequences of Marriage Breakdown Project
• 3 The Law's Response to New Challenges
  Margaret Harrison
  • The Path to Reform 
  • Patterns of Grievances
  • Characteristics of the Common Law
  • The Discretionary System
  • The Role of the Legal System
  • Matrimonial Property and Financial Resources
  • Child Maintenance and the Move Towards Reform
  • Conclusions
• 4 Family Re-formation: A Key Adjustment Strategy
  Ruth Weston and Siew-Ean Khoo
  • Extent of Repartnering and Time Taken to Repartner
  • Timing of Repartnering and Remarriage
  • Factors Associated with Repartnering
  • Aspects of Commitment to Partnership and Repartnering
  • Expectations
  • Family Composition
  • Conclusions
• 5 Housing After Marriage Breakdown: A Longer-Term Perspective
  Siew-Ean Khoo
  • Who Left and Who Remained 
  • Housing Situation of Those who Remained in the Matrimonial Home and Those Who Left 
  • Changes in Housing Tenure 
  • Housing Tenure in 1987 
  • The Affordability of Housing
  • Conclusions
• 6 Women's Post-Separation Employment and Reliance on Social Security
  Kathleen Funder
  • Part One: Women's Post-separation Employment
    • Conditions Associated with Mother's Paid Employment
    • Descriptive Statistics 
    • Re-entry 
    • Retention of Women in Paid Employment After Separation
    • Stability and Duration of Paid Employment
    • Relative Importance of Factors Associated with Post-separation
    • Participation in the Workforce 
    • Implications 
  • Part Two: The Role of Social Security
    • Background 
    • Statistical Overview 
    • Elements in the Analysis 
    • Women in Receipt of Social Security 
    • Duration of Receipt of Social Security 
    • Implications 
• 7 Patterns of Maintenance Payment Over Time
  Margaret Harrison
  • Maintenance Entitlement 
  • Other Payments
  • Compliance with Arrangements, Orders and Agreements 
  • Marital Status and Maintenance Payment
  • Patterns of Maintenance Payments 
  • Amounts of Maintenance 
  • Child Maintenance Amounts and Income of Non-resident Parent 
  • Amounts Paid Over Time 
  • Compliance Over Time 
  • Constancy and Regularity of Payments 
  • Concerns of Parents 
  • Impacts of Maintenance Payments
  • Conclusions
• 8 Income Circumstances of Parents and Children: A Longitudinal View
  Ruth Weston
  • Financial Circumstances of Mothers and Fathers
  • Financial Circumstances in Different Family Types 
  • Experiences of Families According to Father's Personal Income 
  • Conclusions 
• 9 A Model of the Effects of the Child Support Scheme
  Ruth Weston
  • Australia's Child Support Scheme 
  • Total Sample ofWage and Salary Earners 
  • Impact of the Scheme on Different Sub-groups 
  • Single Men and Men with Dependent and Independent Partners
  • Resident Mothers and Their Former Husbands
  • Conclusions 
• 10 Exploring the Access-Maintenance Nexus
  Kathleen Funder
  • Incidence of Conflict, and Bargaining Access for Maintenance 
  • Access and Maintenance 
  • Predictors and Correlates of Access and Maintenance 
  • Conflict About Access at Separation 
  • Explanations of Access 
  • Non-resident Parent Contact and Maintenance
  • Conclusions 
• 11 Principles, Practice and Problems in Property and Income Transfers
  Margaret Harrison, Kathleen Funder and Peter McDonald
  • The Issues
  • What Are the Financial Outcomes Of Marriage Breakdown?
  • Superannuation (Retirement Benefits) 
  • Sources of Differential Outcomes and Impacts 
  • Sources of Financial Disparities in Income 
  • Objectives of Economic Settlement After Marriage Breakdown 
  • Financial Settlements: International Comparisons 
  • Terminology
  • Legal Responses and the Role of the Law
  • Matrimonial Property: Modern Definitions and Their Implications
  • Property Definitions: The Field of Choice
  • Proposal 
  • Conclusions 
• 12 There is More to Life than Economics
  Ruth Weston and Kathleen Funder
  • Measures ofWellbeing 
  • Trends in Satisfaction for Men and Women 
  • Homogeneity and Disparity in Domains of Satisfaction 
  • Life's Priorities 
  • Explanations of the Post-separation Wellbeing of Parents 
  • Women's Morale 
  • Men's Morale 
  • Misery and Bliss 
  • Implications for Policy 
• 13 Conclusion
  Kathleen Funder
  • Questions Addressed 
  • Resume of Key Findings 
  • Questions Raised by This Study 
  • Recommendations 
• List of References 
• Index 

Foreword

Despite the traumas of illness, death, job loss or divorce, life does go on. People learn to cope and adjust, more or less successfully, to the pain.

In the first book to result from the Australian Institute of Family Studies' longitudinal study of divorced couples with children, we looked at the process of 'Settling Up'. The division of matrimonial property, what happened to children, whether child support payments were made, shifts in housing, neighbourhoods and schools, the sources of income available to each parent and how legal processes affected such economic consequences were all examined in detail.

That first stage of the study has altered public perceptions and policy in Australia. It demonstrated the undeniable poverty that results for many women and children from divorce. It showed how low and how poorly enforced were child support payments. It showed that many couples were able to divorce and 'settle up' without undue conflict, cost and pain for their children. There were also some surprises in the findings: staying in the matrimonial home rather than moving out increased the odds of retaining it as part of the property settlement; women from higher income marriages were more likely to go onto social security benefits than the less well off because their work skills had atrophied over time; women's sense of wellbeing after divorce was, overall, higher than that of men.

Since then, the child poverty campaign, improvements to family allowances, and the introduction of the new child support scheme have all applied those findings to proposals and programs.

This new book follows up the experiences of some 500 divorced men and women some five to eight years after separation. The patterns of adjustment to new homes, new jobs, new schools, new partners, suggest ways of ameliorating stress for both parents and children. The study goes beyond just documenting trends; it looks at processes of 'settling down' after the major life disturbance divorce inevitably causes.

The book also takes further the conceptual debate about divorce. It discusses the role of the law, the limits of public/private responsibility, the shifting grounds of autonomy, commitment, parental obligations and children's interests, and the controversial nexus between contributions/ needs/equality in relation to property (first raised in the earlier book, Settling Up). It also analyses the problematic nexus between child support, custody and access.

These issues will not go away. We are dealing here not just with financial settlements but with the high emotions of personal identity, rejection and rights. As perhaps the most heavily scrutinised piece of legislation in Australia's history, the Family Law Act(1975) stands at the jagged edge of the public/private divide. While the hurt lingers for many involved in divorce, this study offers some hope that with improved legal procedures, counselling and mediation, and those personal adjustments everyone makes as time moves on, most people can 'settle down' and re-make their lives after divorce in a satisfactory way.

Don Edgar
Director
Australian Institute of Family Studies