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CHAPTER 2

Methods and History

of Gender Research

“Poverty after Divorce” (Mann, 1985a)

“Disastrous Divorce Results” (Mann, 1985b)

“Victims of Reform” (Williamson, 1985)

T

hese were some headlines following the publication of Lenore J. Weitzman’s

(1985) bookThe Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic Con-

sequences for Women and Children in America.Weitzman cited statistics that

showed women’s standard of living drops 73% after divorce, whereas men’s standard

of living increases by 42%. The study received a great deal of media attention, mak-

ing headlines of newspapers across the nation. A social scientist and an economist

were shocked by these statistics because the statistics did not match their longitudinal

data from a representative sample of couples who had divorced in the United States.

Their data showed that women’s standard of living fell by only 30% during the first

year following divorce, and even men’s standard of living declined by 7% (Duncan &

Hoffman, 1985). These statistics were subsequently confirmed by the U.S. Bureau of

the Census (1991).

Why the discrepancy? Weitzman’s data were based on a very small sample—114

men and 114 women who became divorced—and the sample was not representative.

The response rate in that study was low, less than 50%. And, standard of living was

calculated from a fairly unreliable source: respondents’ self-reports of their finances

before and after divorce. The tragedy in all of this is not so much that a methodologi-

cally weak study was conducted but that the methodologically weak study attracted so

much attention and the methodologically strong refutations received hardly any.

In this text, I review the scientific literature on gender and its implications for re-

lationships and health. I also make reference to some of the more popular literature on

gender, which is more likely to make newspaper headlines. You may already be familiar

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