When looking at purchasing power, women come out of a divorce worse than men: after five years, their average purchasing power is one fifth lower. This is the conclusion of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) from a study into the influence of a divorce on living, working and income.
Relatively little changes for men after the divorce and as a result they do not see their spending capacity diminish. “For example, men continue to work the same number of hours. In the event of a divorce, they also have to move, and then it is usually the women who move to another house and the men who remain,” says Tanja Traag, chief sociologist at CBS.
Immediately after the divorce, the average purchasing power of women decreases significantly and increases slightly for men, according to Statistics Netherlands. However, the purchasing power of women increases again in the following years, for example because they start working more hours.
New partner
But the purchasing power difference between men and women is still 21 percent. “Your purchasing power depends on the disposable income that must be divided over the number of people. The mother more often keeps the children with her, so she must also divide her income among more people,” explains Traag.
How quickly the disposable income rises also depends on how quickly the woman finds a new partner and starts living with that partner. “Then they often improve, but you still see that women with children remain single for longer,” says Traag.
The study did not look at alimony. Statistics Netherlands uses the data on disposable income from the Tax and Customs Administration and does not include alimony. Slow: “But if that is included, the difference will be a few percent smaller.”
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