Should Alimony Still Exist?

[Rukentuts]

Dammit I wanted to take it to PMs so we didn't clutter this thread with shit apparently everyone else has already talked about.

@Semaphore: Well everything I can find (without bias, that alone is a fucking chore) effectively says: "The jury is out on it".

[Hiricine]

As it currently stands its a horrific, barbaric practice that encourages exploitation and betrayal on both sides, for the breadwinner to hide their income from the other, and encouragement for the other to leave a relationship.

To be fair to the less respected side of this equation, there are wives who set their careers back to take care of things at home, or even work a job to pay for the cost of living while their man goes to school or gets established in his career. This contribution equates to the amount of work the woman put in at the time, not 20-50% of what the husband makes for the rest of his life.

[Shockzilla]

[QUOTE=Rukentuts;19601995]Oh, then feel free to enlighten us.QUOTE]

No one is trying to paint anything as black and white except you. It’s not that hard to understand, and for this example I will use a husband and wife who have a child. If it is decided that one of the parents will stay home with the child to raise and nurture that child, and that relationship between the husband and wife later deteriorates and they separate. Why is the parent that stayed home to be penalized for this? Both parents have a responsibility to take care of the child; both parents have a responsibility to provide for the child. There are several different ways to do this, but they mutually agreed to use the stay at home method, both of them. That means that they agreed that they valued each other’s contribution to the raising of the child as equally important. The parent that was earning a wage was sharing that wage with the child and their spouse as part of the agreement! They agreed to it and legally have to follow through on that agreement. The wage earner was only able to earn the wage because they did not need to stay home.

If you do not take into consideration all eventualities of a marriage then you are not prepared to start a life with someone else and dam sure should not be having children.

On a different note, children of stay at home parents have vastly less emotional issues and do better in school.

Several recent studies suggest that children who spend all day in childcare have more behavioral issues than children who are cared for at home. This is especially true for children who are in lower-quality childcare or who spend their day in environments that are unstable and unsupportive.

Research consistently shows that parenting remains the greatest influence on children’s development. But studies also indicate that kids in good-quality daycare may do better academically and socially than those who stay home with their mothers, especially if their mothers are poor or not well-educated themselves.

http://www.babycenter.com/0_stay-at-...erview_5959.bc

Work calls, I will try and follow up on this thread again later.

[semaphore]

You're blatantly ignoring the fact that even if men should be paying alimony at a higher rate than women, that figure should not be 92% or 97% or whatever it currently is.

That is not a fact. That is an assertion. Long term alimony is only paid in the case of a stay at home parent. In almost all cases that parent is the mother.

Your clear and plain dismissal of men's concerns, amongst other things, that the courts are heavily biased towards women

You keep saying this but you have produced no actual evidence that they are "heavily biased towards women" in this regard.

Opinions may differ, but you are completely ignoring the other side of the coin, and that is why people are discrediting your posts. Try and evaluate the situation logically and fairly, not with incensed fervor.

If you want to attack what I said, point out how exactly was I illogical or unfair. Otherwise you're just trying to dismiss my arguments because they don't support your views.

[Rukentuts]

The wage earner was only able to earn the wage because they did not need to stay home.

We have these things called computers, and the internet. They let us work remotely.

Granted this isn't fitting to everyone, but it still invalidates that statement.

[semaphore]

@Semaphore: Well everything I can find (without bias, that alone is a fucking chore) effectively says: "The jury is out on it".

So you're accusing the United States Government Accountability Office of being biased now? Because I did link you their report.

And more relevant to this discussion, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the raw pay gap (that is, the unadjusted difference). That is pure maths, there is no bias in it. And you'd have to be blind to look at that and not see the gap.

Dammit I wanted to take it to PMs so we didn't clutter this thread with shit apparently everyone else has already talked about.

I don't like PMs, I never notice them. I remember going over all this in http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...t-really-exist though

[Rukentuts]

So you're accusing the United States Government Accountability Office of being biased now? Because I did link you their report.

And more relevant to this discussion, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the raw pay gap (that is, the unadjusted difference). That is pure maths, there is no bias in it. And you'd have to be blind to look at that and not see the gap.

Math doesn't draw conclusions. It's an observation that doesn't say why, just what.

When we look at conclusions to the 'why', the jury is seeming still out.

[Deleted]

In some cases it does make sense, in others it doesn't.

I think anything owned before marriage should never be divided and the one initiating the divorce should never get anything other than half of mutually acquired possessions unless hes or her spouse is at fault and it can be proven(cheating, abuse etc.).

But in a lot of cases alimony is needed. Especially when the marriage has lasted for a long time and one has had to make sacrifices or support the others studies or career.

[semaphore]

When we look at conclusions to the 'why', the jury is seeming still out.

The why is not relevant to this thread. Regardless of reasons, women are paid substantially less than men on average. This is reflected in alimony payment distributions. One cannot rage at the gender difference in who receives of alimony on the one hand, while ignoring the fact that men on average earn more than women on the other.

Anyway time for me to go.

[Rukentuts]

The why is not relevant to this thread. Regardless of reasons, women are paid substantially less than men on average. This is reflected in alimony payment distributions.

You just said it was!

And yes, your link proves they are paid less (on average). This is a fact.
Now, if we want to attribute why they are paid less, we need to conduct controlled studies, which is extremely difficult for the matter at hand.

Because if it's discrimination, one should justly be paid equally. However, if it's other factors (education, experience, etc) then no, it's valid explanations. But let me reiterate, isolating these factors in a controlled study and then replicating them is extremely difficult.

This is why I said, the jury is still out (on why).

[Reeve]

The why is not relevant to this thread. Regardless of reasons, women are paid substantially less than men on average. This is reflected in alimony payment distributions.

More than that, I'd bet if you looked at the distribution of stay-at-home spouses by gender, you'd find that pretty closely matches the alimony distribution as well. Why do 92% of alimony payments go to women? Look who it is that is staying home.

[semaphore]

You just said it was!

No... I said the raw wage gap is the important one. We don't need to know why, we just need to establish that there is a gap. How is why the women is paid less relevant to the judge when deciding who is poorer at the time of the divorce?

[Elegiac]

I'm pretty sure you can set those things on the marriage contract... before you get married.

Some people don't sign prenuptial agreements for some reason.

[Rukentuts]

No... I said the raw wage gap is the important one. We don't need to know why, we just need to establish that there is a gap. How is why the women is paid less relevant to the judge when deciding who is poorer at the time of the divorce?

Because if I chose to go to school, and my partner did not, one of us makes less for a completely valid reason and one should not have to pay the other because of it.

One example why interpreting off raw data is deceiving. Discrepancies need to be accounted for.

[semaphore]

More than that, I'd bet if you looked at the distribution of stay-at-home spouses by gender, you'd find that pretty closely matches the alimony distribution as well. Why do 92% of alimony payments go to women? Look who it is that is staying home.

On that note, the father is the stay-at-home parent for 0.8% of married couples. For women the figure is about 23%. So women makes up about 97% of the total stay at home parents, but only receive 92% of alimony payments. In fact going off on this basis alone it shows that the courts are biased in favour of men (no I don't actually believe that)! Hence why I told you such figures don't reliably demonstrate bias, SuperMechatronGamer.

And now I really have to go lol

[Beat5beat]

I think it should exist, but essentially as a parachute. Should one spouse work while the other stays home to look after the kids or whatever, a reasonable contribution should be made to allow the carer time to find work. I definitely do not think that this should be an indefinite process, however; a few years (2-3?) seems an acceptable period to my mind. As for a split in divorce proceedings, I think both partners should firstly leave with what they came in with, then find an agreeable split between earnings and acquisitions for the period that they were married.

I see this opinion voiced a lot, but I completely disagree. The government has or should have assistance programs put in place to provide for people in these situations. It should never be the responsibility of an individual citizen to provide welfare for another individual, outside taxes, child support, and anything they choose to donate from the goodness of their own heart. Mandating that one citizen pay for another citizen in addition to taxes regardless of the circumstances is unfair and should not be done.

[Reeve]

I see this opinion voiced a lot, but I completely disagree. The government has or should have assistance programs put in place to provide for people in these situations. It should never be the responsibility of an individual citizen to provide welfare for another individual, outside taxes, child support, and anything they choose to donate from the goodness of their own heart. Mandating that one citizen pay for another citizen in addition to taxes regardless of the circumstances is unfair and should not be done.

So instead the single people and the married people and everyone else should pay for the decisions of some married couple that decided to have a stay-at-home parent? I think it's far more fair to have the spouse pay for that.

[Deleted]

It's called consequences. It's like responsibility is taboo in our country...

If at the time both partners agree that one of them will stay at home for say 10 years in order to raise a family, the person working should at least support the person that stayed at home until they can get a living wage to support themselves due to sacrificing earlier career prospects should they divorce. That's the fairest way i see it.

[poser765]

Because if I chose to go to school, and my partner did not, one of us makes less for a completely valid reason and one should not have to pay the other because of it.

One example why interpreting off raw data is deceiving. Discrepancies need to be accounted for.

The problem is you are making the decision an individual decision. In most cases it's not a matter of me deciding to work and her deciding to not work. It's a decision that is made jointly. The couple decides to forfeit school/career for one to tend the house while the decide as a couple that one should go to work.

It's a joint decision, thus the consequences should also be jointly shared.

[Rukentuts]

If at the time both partners agree that one of them will stay at home for say 10 years in order to raise a family, the person working should at least support the person that stayed at home until they can get a living wage to support themselves due to sacrificing earlier career prospects should they divorce. That's the fairest way i see it.

Taking this from Wiki:

As of 2009, first marriages which ended in divorce lasted a median of 8 years for both men and women. The median time to separation from first marriages was about 7 years.[10]

In addition, the average age of age of marriage is mid 20s, and the average age of first child is approaching 30.

I think you all are smart enough to see the point.