74 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
even less likely to receive payment. Nationwide statistics from
the late 1980s indicate that average child-support payments
received in a year ranged from about $2,000 to $3,000 (depend-
ing upon the number of children). This amount had not changed
much between 1978 and 1987. It should be noted, however, that
child-support levels have increased substantially since the early
1990s.
Neither can most women look to spousal support to save the
day. Only about 15 percent of divorced women nationwide are
awarded alimony (in Hawai‘i it’s less than 10 percent). Worse
still, only about 5 percent are actually receiving their full court-
ordered payments.
How about a little economic fairness for women? There is a signifi-
cant movement afoot nowadays to try to equalize the economic
disparity that occurs following divorce wherein women almost
inevitably seem to take a much bigger hit economically speaking
than do men. Many sociologists have now come to feel that the
whole idea of no-fault divorce is a real mistake for society and
are now rethinking the whole philosophical underpinnings of the
no-fault concept. The concern is that it encourages divorce and
severely disadvantages women.
There is, in fact, a sizable movement afoot to take a gender-
fairness approach to analyzing the alimony and property issues
in divorce cases. Something of this sort has already occurred in
the child-support area. Judges and legislators have finally gotten
sick of seeing husbands failing to pay court-ordered child sup-
port and have tightened up the amounts of the collections and
the enforcement procedures.
It has been particularly difficult for me on a personal level to
watch some of my favorite female clients begin to literally cir-
cle the financial drain during the years following their divorces.
About all that any divorce lawyer can realistically do for their
increasingly impoverished female clients at this post-divorce
juncture is to go back into court for support increases—not exactly
a satisfactory solution.