As Women Earn More, Alimony Laws Lag Behind

Rachel Emma Silverman

Wall Street Journal

As we recently wrote, women now make up almost half of the American work force and a growing number of women are becoming their families’ primary breadwinners.  But while the economics of marriage have undergone major transformations, the economics of divorce haven’t kept up. As my WSJ colleague Jennifer Levitz reports,  there is a growing movement, spurred by the recession, to change how alimony is paid.

Alimony, or spousal-support payments, typically involves a husband supporting his ex-wife long after the demise of the marriage. (Alimony is separate from child-support payments.) Men accounted for 97% of alimony-payers in 2008, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, although the share of women supporting ex-husbands is on the rise.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2010/02/02/as-women-earn-more-alimony-laws-lag-behind/