Divorce courts mirror society as more women pay alimony

Tables have turned in US divorce courts with more women paying their former husbands alimony and child support than ever before, according to US lawyers.

As women climb higher up the career ladder and outpace their exes in salary, when love goes wrong and marriages break up they are being compelled to contribute to the livelihood of their former spouses.

And some are not happy about it.

More than half, 56 per cent, of divorce lawyers across the United States have seen an increase in mothers paying child support in the last three years and 47 per cent have noted a hike in the number of women paying alimony, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

"It shows that women have really moved up financially and that in many instances they are the major bread winners in a lot of families," said Alton Abramowitz, the president-elect of the academy.

"The glass ceiling has been pierced and more and more women have taken over the financial responsibilities and have been saddled with them as well. It is a fact of the way our society has evolved over the last number of years."

Abramowitz, who has been practicing law for 39 years, described the findings of the survey and the changed role of women in the workforce as a sea change.

In his graduating law school class of 135, there were just six women. Data from the Digest of Education Statistics show that the number of men and women receiving medical degrees in the US is almost equal, unlike 1980 when only about a third of medical degrees were awarded to women.

The number of women getting law degrees has nearly doubled.

"You are seeing the results of that, the impact, now in terms of the professions," Abramowitz said.

Although women have made strides professionally, the divorce rate in the United States has remained fairly constant. About half of marriages in the US end in divorce. The rate has hovered between 46 and 53 per cent for decades, he added.

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