Research shows women especially affected by property division

Posted in Property Division on August 24, 2018

Dissolving a marriage can quickly take a financial toll on any individual in California. However, research shows that divorce issues such as property division tend to especially impact women. Here is a glimpse at how divorce affects women and how they can protect their financial interests in the midst of it.

In 2008, researchers stated that women who have been through divorce often lose more than 20 percent of their incomes, and unfortunately, their post-divorce incomes remain low. However, the opposite is true for men who go through divorce, with their incomes generally rising by nearly a third. Still, a recent study indicated that women may actually not be that bad off financially, following the dissolution of their marriages.

Researchers recently asserted that the one thing that helps women who are going through divorce to stay financially stable long-term is home ownership. In fact, researchers claimed that many women who are divorced are financially better off than those who have never gotten married simply because they own homes. Therefore, it may come as no surprise that many women seek the marital home above other types of assets during divorce.

The benefit of owning the marital home is that it is generally a high-value asset. Also, because it is illiquid, the spouse who ends up with it will be less tempted to dip into this asset as he or she would a $150,000 retirement savings plan, for example. At the same time, because the house is illiquid, the spouse cannot readily use this asset in the event of a financial emergency, so it may not be helpful for some divorcing spouses to keep long-term. Property division involving the family home can certainly be complicated, but fortunately, an attorney in California can help divorcing spouses to make the wisest property division decisions possible based on their unique financial situations.

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