One way to give them more money and not incentivize single parenthood (which is the issue, not divorce, and treating them as equivalent has always been wrong and is increasingly so as marriage rates drops) is to go to UBI instead of means-tested aid, or, if using means testing, use a means-testing formula which doesn't punish two-parent families.
> Children being raised by single mothers is not a good outcome.
Its a lot better than children being raised by two parents together, one of which is abusing them and/or the other parent, which any change which does more to avoid incentivizing divorce or single-parenthood more than eliminating any two-parent penalty would incentivize, especially for the poor.
UBI still incentivizes divorce. It offers unconditional financial support to single mothers.
> Abuse
We're talking about no-fault divorces. Divorce, with cause, has always been legal -- abuse, neglect, abandonment, sterility, addiction -- there have always been ways to deal with these issues.
More than half of all children will be raised in divorced households. The idea that 50% of fathers are abusing the children is absurd. There is a very clear lack of awareness on how severe each of these issues are. Yes, abuse by parents
No, it is neutral on divorce, because the support is unconditional.
> More than half of all children will be raised in divorced households.
Will be... when? And where's the evidence? The entire increase in single-mother families from the 1970s to 2019 was driven by the increase in parents who never married, not an increase in divorce-with-children. [0]
> The idea that 50% of fathers are abusing the children is absurd.
No one said that all divorce was due to abuse, but its interesting that aside from your invented numbers and inventing the claim of universality, you also changed divorce involving abuse of the other partner or a child to being exclusively about fathers and exclusively about abusing children.
[0] https://ifstudies.org/blog/children-first-why-family-structu....
In the US, many states have family court systems with statutory and/or systemic biases against fathers. Mothers are typically given majority custody of the children and deference when it comes to making decisions about the children.
Single mothers often qualify for government assistance that they wouldn't qualify for as a married woman. Tax credits and deductions are awarded to the parent with majority custody (which is typically women).
Fathers typically contribute more to the financial assets of the marriage, yet are typically lucky to receive 50% of marital assets in a divorce. Men typically have higher long-term earnings than women in the US (for reasons that aren't discriminatory), and courts typically award the lower earning spouse some percentage of the higher-earning spouses future income in a divorce (even when there aren't children).
When it comes to paying for costs related to raising children (school tuition, sports, fees, medical costs), the higher earning spouse is typically ordered to pay a higher proportion of the costs (like 60-70%).
For example, women usually get more custody, but that’s also because men often don’t seek custody. Men who seek custody are awarded it at similar rates as women, IIRC.
It’s also not true that men are “lucky” to get 50% of the assets. That’s the default position in community property states.
And it still doesn’t explain how women are incentivized to divorce, given that despite some of the things above, women still fare worse in divorce than men do. Child support and alimony are, on average, something like softens the blow for the lower-earning spouse, not a path to a higher standard of living than was enjoyed in the marriage.
FWIW, I’m divorced and pay child support and the lion’s share of kid expenses, including school tuition. And yet I wouldn’t trade my financial position for my ex’s. This is true for almost every divorced man I know, and I know a lot at this point.
