Women have found employment opportunities (maybe not great, well-paying opportunities, but something) in retail and service industries in huge numbers, and now they are being made redundant in huge numbers, from the counter workers in Woolworths to the domestic cleaners of Canary Wharf workers. In fact double the rate.
What’s more, it may be that they are even in the same jobs being differentially laid off more often than men – clearly this is something that needs to be monitored, and if necessary prevented (unions and government need to keep a very close count).
And one of the things we know can be a trigger, if not a cause, of divorce is financial stress – and there is now definitive evidence showing how the divorce law still leaves women worse off, and men better off. Maybe now the Fathers For Justice types will stop bleating?
Jenkins found that the positive effect on men’s finances is so significant that divorce can even lift them out of poverty, while women are far more likely to be plunged into destitution. Separated women have a poverty rate of 27% – almost three times that of their former husbands.
Maintenance paid by former partners also has little impact, said Jenkins, as just 31% of separated mothers receive payment from the father of their children.
BUt there is a positive message for women in there: don’t give up your job! “The percentage change in income is less if they have worked beforehand and continue working afterwards.”
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