Vol.:(0123456789) Social Indicators Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-021-02733-4 1 3 ORIGINAL RESEARCH Do the Privileged Always Win? Economic Consequences of Divorce by Income and Gender Groups Miri Endeweld 1  · Anat Herbst‑Debby 2  · Amit Kaplan 3 Accepted: 4 June 2021 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021 Abstract The heterogeneous economic results of divorce have received limited attention. The cur- rent study analyzes such consequences from an intersectionality perspective, where het- erogeneity is expressed not only in gender groups, but also in the locations of women and men on the earnings distribution scale. We also examine whether remarriage and welfare support have difering efects on income across these groups. The study uses a unique data- set in Israel that merges administrative data from the tax authorities (employment income and pensions) with the National Insurance Institute database (socio-demographic informa- tion and allowances). Applying two-level (“mixed”) panel models combined with quantile regressions, we investigate the post-divorce income of women and men by tertile, as well as in the top percentile of each gender group. Results show that the most vulnerable group among men is low income, while the most immune group of men is very high income. For women, however, diferences between classes are small; across the board, women’s post- divorce income decreases by at least a third. Thus, while the efect of divorce on men’s income depends upon their earnings level, its efect on women’s income is negative even in the top percentile. Remarriage has a diferential efect on income based on location on the income distribution scale only for men. The welfare policy efect on income is gendered: regardless of earnings group, allowances are negatively related to income for women and positively related for men. Keywords Divorce consequences · Quantile regressions · Intersectionality · Income · Inequality · Gender · Remarriage * Anat Herbst-Debby herbsta@biu.ac.il Miri Endeweld mirie@nioi.gov.il Amit Kaplan amitka@mta.ac.il 1 National Insurance Institute, Jerusalem, Israel 2 Interdisciplinary Gender Studies Program, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel 3 School of Government and Society, The Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel