When looking at purchasing power, a woman comes out of a divorce situation worse than a man: after five years, her average purchasing power is one-fifth less. This is the conclusion of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) from a study on the impact of divorce on living, work and income.

Relatively minor changes for men after divorce and as a result they do not see their spending limits diminish. “For example, men continue to work the same number of hours. In the event of a divorce, they also have to move, so the women usually move to another house and the men stay,” says Tanya Tragg, CBS’s chief sociologist.

Immediately after a divorce, the average purchasing power of women drops dramatically and increases slightly for men, according to Statistics Netherlands. However, the purchasing power of women increases again in the following years, for example because they start working more hours.

new partner

However, the purchasing power difference between men and women is still 21 percent. “Your purchasing power depends on disposable income which has to be divided by the number of people. The mother often keeps the children with her, so she also has to divide her income among more people,” explains Taraj.

How quickly disposable income rises also depends on how quickly a woman finds a new partner and starts living with that partner. “After that they often get better, but you still see that women who have had children stay single longer,” Traag says.

The study did not look at alimony. Statistics Netherlands uses disposable income data from the tax authorities and does not include alimony. Slow: “But if that were included, the difference would be a few percent smaller.”