Marital split is still a costly affair for mothers: Study

London, Mar 6 (UNI) No matter how much we talk about equal rights to women, the bitter reality is that marital split is still an expensive affair for mothers.

Women who separate from their partners are recovering faster from the collapse in income that they experience after a marital split, but that in all is a costly affair for them, a study reveals.

The Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University, UK has found that separating mothers and their children are still experiencing far worse financial circumstances than their departing partners.

The study, based on annual interviews with 5,500 British households found most women with children never totally recovered from the financial effects of the split.

Five years on, their incomes were on average still 10 per cent below pre-split levels.

''The average short-term income loss for childless separating women has remained fairly constant over the last 15 years. Gender remains a good predictor of whether an adult's income rises or falls after experiencing a marital split, '' Professor Stephen Jenkins, director of the institute said.

The average decline in a mother's income between 1991 and 1997, was 30 per cent after splitting from a partner, comparing spending power in the years before and after the break-up. But between 1998 and 2004, the figure was 12 per cent. The researchers measured the income of the mother's household after adjusting for the number of adults and children living in it.

But the mothers are recovering faster from financial meltdown as they are more likely to get a job and are more likely to qualify for support from the state to make the job worth doing,the Guardian reported.

Those who had a job in the year after the split and kept it for the next five years came close to restoring their income to pre-split levels. Those who did not have a job and did not find a new partner remained much worse off.

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