Womens’ Second Husbands Make More Money than their First Husbands

It has become conventional wisdom that women are almost always worse off financially after a divorce while men are better off.  I understand this conventional wisdom resulted from a widely-discussed study whose result turned out to be very wrong because of a math error.  Justin Wolfers, writing in the economics blog Freakonomics, discusses an interesting study that looked into this a bit further. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/

 It turns out that while it is true that the average woman does not fare better financially after a divorce, some women do far better financially after a divorce.

http://personal.lse.ac.uk/michaels/Ananat_Michaels_Marital_Breakup.pdf

This is partly because some women eventually wind up with high-paying jobs, but it is partly because they remarry guys who make a lot of money.  See pp.13-14 for a very brief discussion of this: women who remarry often marry guys with more money and socioeconomic status (SES) than their first husbands had.

I can well imagine this result.  Let’s say a young woman marries her high school sweetheart.  He’s good-looking, she’s good-looking, and they get along pretty well.   Let’s say he goes into a less than lucrative line of work.  They’re happy at first, but soon a child comes along and money gets tight.  They begin to fight and the resentment builds (many marital arguments are about money).  Eventually they divorce. 

The woman is still fairly young and attractive and she starts to date.  At this point in her life she realizes the importance of a financially stable and secure life.  She naturally gravitates toward guys with a high income.   She can even search by income on Match.com, yahoo personals, and other online dating services. 

Eventually she marries one of these guys who make three or four times what her ex-husband makes.  She is one of these women who is better off financially after a divorce.   Not right after the divorce, but fairly soon after. 

I didn’t wade through all the data in the study, but it appears this result happens with only a small number of the female divorced population (perhaps 5%).  I surmise these are the best-looking divorced women.

This is consistent with a saying I heard a woman use: marry for looks the first time, and for money the second time.  Please note that I’m not endorsing marrying only for money.  That should be only one of the factors to be considered.  I’m suggesting only that women are understandably more focused on financial security when choosing their second husbands.

This ties into my post several weeks ago that women should take financial considerations into account when determining who to date.  

Mr. Thoughtful, Pre-marriage Counselor.   Maybe I should advertise my services.  But in the meantime, women or men should feel free to ask me questions.