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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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