New study into 'efficiency' of divorce

A new study by a researcher at Iowa State University has found that around 25% of divorces are 'inefficient' and the couples might have been happier if they had remained married.

"What the paper actually does is look at the impact of spousal cooperation, conflict and divorce in marriage on the happiness of the spouses," said Oleksandr (Alex) Zhylyevskyy, an assistant professor of economics at Iowa State. "Effectively, I'm trying to get a measure of how happy people are in a particular marital state and analyse factors impacting that across individuals. I can use this model to look at relevant variables and see how changes might affect the incidence of cooperation, conflict and divorce among married couples in the United States."

"Among several measures that can be quantified with this model is the incidence of cases in which people who divorced could have been better off had they stayed married," he continued.

Zhylyevskyy looked at how characteristics of couples in the study such as age, education and race related to their happiness in marriage, separation and divorce, and used that to calculate the inefficiency of divorce. He also took account of of the impact of separation period requirements and child support enforcement, as these were variables that government could influence.

According to the study, the requirement for longer separation periods is likely to lead to a more expensive divorce, as the services of a lawyer may be needed for a longer time. It could also lead to an increased psychological cost, as couples spend longer in “marital limbo”.

The study also found that how effectively child support payments are enforced had a strong impact on the efficiency of divorce. If authorities were to strongly enforce child support payment rulings, Zhylyevskyy expects that the likelihood of an inefficient divorce would go down.

According to Zhylyevskyy, the findings of his study could be used by the Government to influence couples to work harder at reconciling differences and staying married. 

"What I see is some indication that public policy may help decrease inefficiency in divorce," he said. "Inefficient outcomes are bad and are something that should be avoided."