The Key Issue in Divorce: Children

Joseph Stiglitz often jokes that the “most important decision in life is choosing the right parents”. So is the “choice” of being born in a household of divorcing parents really a poor one? This aspect, relatively unexplored in the article, calls for additional developments, after indicating, in agreement with the authors, that it is largely the parents’ responsibility if they choose a partner with whom they are unable to live in harmony.

Divorce can be interpreted schematically as an incompatibility in the mating procedure that, in western societies,⁽¹⁾ is left entirely to individuals and no longer concerns the family, as was the case in traditional societies. This incompatibility may arise because couples adapt poorly to unforeseen events (such as upward or downward career mobility of one of the partners) or cannot cope with the difficulties involved in cohabitation. But the authors do not address the fact that although divorce results from decisions taken by individuals, a certain amount of social determinism may be at play. The decision to divorce may be inf luenced by one’s own parents’ divorce, or there may be an intergenerational correlation between unfavourable characteristics from the original environment and the probability of a divorce in the population of descendants.

For example, do children of divorcees divorce more than the others? Can union instability or mismatches be transmitted from one generation to the next? If such is the case – and this point is not examined in the article – we believe that the reasoning of John Roemer (1998) applies (see also Roemer and Trannoy, 2015). Roemer distinguishes between “circumstances”, including the factors of influence imposed on the individual such as social environment and the hazards of life, and “effort”, a general term designating factors for which the individual can be held responsible. A systematic difference in choice on average is a circumstance, a characteristic independent of individuals. As with any circumstance, it should be addressed by a compensation policy on the part of the public authorities to re-establish equal opportunity. What form could that policy take? Habitual thinking would advocate monetary redistribution, while a vision informed by equal opportunity would prefer a preventive policy over a curative policy, at least where an ex ante approach is preferred over an ex post approach. Vouchers could be provided to partly cover the cost of consulting relationship counsellors, psychologists or psychiatrists, even though relationship counsellors can already be consulted free of charge at family planning clinics. In the absence of children, alimony between former spouses belongs to the private domain. In theory, a Coasian analysis (Coase, 1960) can be applied to the negotiation of alimony between the two former spouses, whereby the individual instigating the separation should compensate the other individual unless, by common agreement, the two individuals wish to recover their freedom and consider alimony in the light of the specific investments made in the couple. The author makes an accurate analysis of the imbalance between the two sexes. In most cases, men have invested more in the job market, the returns of which are, in theory, independent of marital status, even if a number of studies highlight a marriage-related “wage bonus” that may result from a selection effect or a greater investment. Women, particularly those who stopped work to take care of children, have generally invested more in domestic activities, the yields of which are specific to the marriage. The analysis could be extended to pension schemes. With funded pension schemes, the capital accumulated by the two partners could be divided in two, as could the wealth acquired during marital life. Under a points-based pay-as-you-go pension scheme, like that in Sweden, the total points accumulated by the partners could also be divided between them. The pay-as-you-go scheme in France is not unified and pensioners cannot claim their entitlement until they actually retire, so it is unfortunately not amenable to this sharing solution. The pay-as-you-go pension scheme can also be a source of inequality at the moment of separation if it encourages individuals to save too little for their old age. In such cases, the...