Alimony and Efficiency : The Gendered Costs and Benefits of the Economic Justification for Alimony

This paper will analyze the emerging law and economics justification for alimony. It will argue that while the economic justification for alimony contains some important insights, feminists and other family law scholars should ultimately be wary of attempting to justify postdivorce incomesharing by relying primarily on economic efficiency grounds. Part I of the paper will briefly sketch the historical and doctrinal developments that have led a number of economists and family law scholars to suggest economic rationales for divorce-related income transfers. Part II will outline the economic efficiency argument in support of alimony. That argument draws heavily on the early work of economists Gary Becker and Elisabeth Landes and has been advanced most recently by Allen Parkman in his 1992 book on no-fault divorce.1 Economic efficiency arguments also form the core of Ira Ellman's influential theory of alimony,2 and these same arguments animate the spousal support provisions of the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution draft.3 Part III of the paper will highlight the insights offered by the economic approach to alimony and, more generally, by the application of economic analysis to legal issues relating to marriage and divorce. Part IV will critique the economic approach from a feminist perspective.4 It will argue