The Effects of Union Dissolution on the Economic Resources of Men and Women: A Comparative Analysis of Germany and the United States, 1985–2013

Abstract

We analyze the consequences of union dissolution on the economic resources of men and women in the United States and Germany over three decades, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and another international survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel, which was modeled after the PSID. Measured either by family size–adjusted “pregovernment” or “postgovernment” incomes (incomes to men and women either before or after taxes and cash transfers from social welfare programs), women fare worse than men in both countries in each of the two time periods we study (1985–1993 and 2005–2013). This is primarily due to reductions in access to their partner’s earnings, even though those reductions are somewhat mitigated by increases in their own earnings and by reductions in taxes and family size. German women experienced larger proportionate reductions in postgovernment resources than American women in the first period examined five years after a family split. American women did worse in the later period, experiencing statistically significant declines in their postgovernment incomes relative to the initial period.