German Divorce Reform Reshaped Women’s and Men’s Earnings After Separation

Divorce changed the earnings of men and women in Germany in opposite directions, and a 2008 reform of post-separation maintenance rules shifted those patterns, according to a study published in the European Journal of Population. The research, led by Michaela Kreyenfeld, Sarah Schmauk, Katharina Wrohlich and Daniel Brüggmann, draws on administrative records from the German Public Pension Fund to trace how gross earnings moved around separation.

The team examined women and men who divorced between 2004 and 2011, covering 24,135 divorces. Using a fixed-effects panel approach with dynamic treatment effects, they followed earnings trajectories through the divorce process and compared the period before the 2008 maintenance reform with the period after it. The reform overturned previous rules on ex-spousal support, altering the financial obligations that one former partner may owe the other after a marriage ends.

Women’s earnings increased throughout the divorce process, the study found, and this rise was slightly more pronounced after the reform than before it. Men’s earnings, by contrast, declined throughout the divorce process, but after the reform that decline was less pronounced than it had been previously. In other words, the policy change coincided with a modest narrowing of the earnings shifts that divorce produced for each sex: women’s gains became somewhat larger while men’s losses became somewhat smaller.

The reform’s timing matters for interpreting these results. Because the study compares trajectories before and after the 2008 change, the reported differences describe how the association between divorce and earnings differed across the two policy periods rather than isolating a single causal effect in a strict experimental sense. The authors describe the analysis as an examination of how differences in social policy contexts influence the relationship between divorce and earnings, with the maintenance reform as the central policy case.

Geography emerged as a striking dividing line. In West Germany, divorce was associated with changes in the earnings trajectories of both women and men. In East Germany, however, earnings patterns among men and women remained largely unchanged around separation, both before and after the reform.

The data source shapes what the study can show. Because the records come from the German Public Pension Fund, the outcome measured is gross earnings recorded in administrative pension data, which captures employment-based earnings rather than total household income, transfers or assets. The study population consists of people whose marriages ended in divorce between 2004 and 2011, so the findings speak to that cohort and period rather than to divorces occurring today.

The paper concludes by discussing avenues for post-separation policies from a gender perspective, positioning the results as evidence for debates about how legal frameworks should support men and women after a marriage ends. The article was published on 7 October 2026 as an open-access, peer-reviewed accepted manuscript, a version the journal notes is subject to further edits before the final version of record replaces it.

Subject of Research: The impact of a 2008 German maintenance reform on women's and men's earnings around divorce

Article Title: Policy Change and Women’s and Men’s Earnings Around Divorce: Evidence from the German Maintenance Reform

Article References: Kreyenfeld, M., Schmauk, S., Wrohlich, K., & Brüggmann, D. (2026). Policy Change and Women’s and Men’s Earnings Around Divorce: Evidence from the German Maintenance Reform. European Journal of Population. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-026-09788-4

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s10680-026-09788-4

Keywords: divorce, earnings, maintenance reform, Germany, gender, pension records, East Germany, West Germany, social policy, separation, Policy, Change