Negotiating Divorce Outcomes: Can We Identify Patterns in Divorce Settlements?

As nuclear families have become increasingly less stable over the past quarter century, married couples have been faced with the difficult task of negotiating the terms by which marriage is ended. For parents, divorce involves questions revolving around the care and sustenance of children. In this paper we investigate whether observed divorce settlements indicate that parents make trade-offs in several areas concerning their children, including custody, visitation, child support, and marital property division. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, we find evidence that parents make trade-offs of this nature. We also suggest a framework within which these results can be interpreted. Negotiating Divorce Outcomes: Can We Identify Patterns in Divorce Settlements An increasing proportion of all households are headed by a single parent. A significant proportion of the increase in these households can be attributed to increases in marital dissolution. Estimates indicate that as many as 50 percent of marriages recently contracted will eventually end in divorce (Weed, 1980). The determinants of marital dissolution and the socioeconomic consequences for women and children have received considerable research attention (e.g., Duncan and Hoffman, 1985; Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986; Wallerstein and Kelley, 1980; Weitzman, 1985). Yet the patterns of negotiation surrounding divorce, which set the context for subsequent life-course outcomes, have received much less attention. Little is known about the interrelationships between various outcomes that constitute the basis of a divorce settlement. In this paper, we consider observed divorce outcomes to be indicators of the process of negotiation by which marriages are ended.