User:Gopherfan/downward mobility and divorce

Divorce is an outcome that can occur when a family is in the midst of a downward mobile spiral. Divorce can also be a catalyst for becoming downwardly mobile and/ or increase the level of downward moility that a family/person is experiencing.

Background on downward mobility
Downward mobility is when an individual and/or family experience a drop in the quality of life either socially, economically, or both, based on the society that they are part of. “They are men and women who once had secure jobs, comfortable homes, and reason to believe that the future would be one of continued prosperity for themselves and their children (Newman 1999).” Downward mobility in almost every case is fueled by an economic down turn for the individual or family. This usually is caused by a loss of a job or significant cut in pay. It should be noted that their can be downward mobility from the poor, but downwardly mobile usually refers to upper and middle class families who have had some sort of set back in the way they lead their lives.(Grella 1990)

Divorced men
The main affect of downward mobility on men besides the obvious economic drop is a mixture of shame, embarrassment, and frustration. This is related to the money but as Katherine Newman in her book Falling from Grace points out, men who lose their white collar management positions are embarrassed in front of their family. Not being able to provide what they once could can put a lot of anxiety on an already problematic situation such as downward mobility. This increasing anxiety can lead to marriage and family problems stemmed from the insecurity someone feels when they are not “performing” at the level they want to be. This spillover anxiety from the economic problems can lead communication breakdowns in a household distancing a partner from the other and their children (Olson, 1998).

This time can actually be the exact opposite for the man. They never want the economic downturn but being let go for a job or having to take a job that is not as rigorous can give the man some time to spend with his kids and family that he has not experienced before.

Social status is another thing that an elite or middle class man may find is decreasing when downward mobility strikes. Loss of social status due to lack pf funds to afford the lifestyle that one used to enjoy can be harmful if ones circle of friends and co-workers are all in the social status the was previously enjoyed by the individual/family going through downward mobility. This can lead to isolation between the family/individual and the community and their friends because if one feels that this previous social status is important it can be difficult to maintain those connection.(Newman 1999)

Unlike women in divorce and downward mobility, there has not been much study on what a man goes through after they have divorced. This is the case because men have a relatively easier time money wise after they leave the divorce. Men after their first year of divorce on average experience a 42 percent increase in standard of living while women usually experience a seventy three percent decline. After seven years, a man has gained a 17 percent increase while a woman usually experiences a twenty nine percent loss (Grella 1990).

Divorced women
Women who are recently divorced are experiencing many emotional up and downs that comes with end of relationships. They are in a limbo between trying to preserve their status of where they were while at the same time find a new identity and rebuild themselves (Olson, 2008). Women from the depression and post world war two generation did not receive usually too much education past the high school level. This created another strain on their post divorce adaptation because they did not have the means or earning power to keep up the lifestyle they had received in their married life. Although the loss of monetary middle class status is loss, there are many women from Newman’s study that say they “I still feel like I’m middle class. I still have middle class values, I just don’t have the money or the material things that are usually associated with being middle class."

Something that also changes for recently divorced middle

Generations and cohorts
Downward mobility may be seen on the surface as a decline in economic status but there is very large part of downward mobility that rests beneath the economic downfall. It is the social aspect of it which is often defined by how the person who is experiencing the downward mobility interprets symbols (symbols being things like having a house, designer cloths, vacations, etc.)(Newman 1986). These symbols and experiences are interpreted differently by different generations and cohorts. Newman defines cohort and generation as:

Cohort: People within a delineated population who experienced the same significant life event within a given time. The event is usually birth.

Generation: Includes a birth cohort, internally homogeneous in some respect and is distinctly different from people being born earlier or later.

An example of this is described by Newman in her work on post-divorced downward mobility. If one is to look at women who were reared in the time of the great depression and women who were raised a post world war 2, there is a considerable difference in the way they react to being downwardly mobile. A woman coming from the depression because of her history of experiencing hard times is more likely to know how to deal with the times financially for they have already experienced a time like it. However they also tend to put more value into say their home because the home symbolizes financial security and is also a representation of the family and what it has accomplished. A loss in a large amount of income makes it very difficult to keep up the home so it becomes worn and torn. This has the tendency to make women in the depression generation to feel very trapped because they is little one can do to stop the economic slide initially because a lot of these women were home makers and did not have the amount of schooling to get a job that could pay for the middle class lifestyle that they were used to.

Women born after world war 2 tended to “embrace” downward mobility a lot more than that of the depression generation. Most of these women grew up in relatively affluent households. After going through a divorce an heading down the tract of downward mobility the loss of material possessions is seen as a blessing. They feel they can focus on a more meaningful life because they no longer focused so much on the material aspects of life. This does not mean that they were happy with the hardships that they faced but allowed them some time for self reflection in a positive way. It also allowed them to get away from the material world which in many of their minds had great influence in their marriages collapse. Fights surrounding some aspect of money and how it is spent is the leading cause of divorce (Olson, 1998). People from this generation tend to worry more about the fact that they can not give their kids all they want. These examples highlight how different aspects of downward mobility is embedded in the history of generations and cohorts.

Effects on children and parents
Divorce itself has an affect on children, and when coupled with downward mobility, it can have even more of an affect. A large part of how a child is affected is in the age that the child experiences the downward mobility and divorce. A child that starts to experience downward mobility later in their teen years feels obligated to help out in a sense and is willing to give up a lot of their earnings and time to help out the family. This is summarized by Newman’s findings when she interviews a girl and she says “you know, even though I managed to get out of the house and go to college, I can remember the nights I spent waiting by the phone for the call from my parents with news about my Dad’s latest job’ prospects. I worried more about his chances than my own grades in economics, which probably had more impact on my own future. But I didn’t feel I had a future independent of my folks. Every few months I would have to send money to keep them going. I felt that I had no chance to make my own life, that I would always be attached by the umbilical cord (Newman 1988).” This experience is different for younger children because they don’t work but at the same time have not experienced the not being downwardly mobile.

After divorced has occurred and there is downwardly mobility the situation is altered some. Younger children tend to be very close to the mother in absence of the father (in many cases, this is reversed if the father has primary custody of the children). Children in their earlier teen years when divorce and downward mobility are more engrossed in their every day teen activities. The single parent will put on a show and try and make their children’s lives like it was with two parents in the home Newman’s data found. This in turn can cause the adolescents to expect to be able to get the things they once received instead of coping with reality. A common occurrence is one like this, “my children don’t seem to realize that we can’t afford the kind of things that we had before. They are always asking me for money or cloths and sulk if I don’t give it to them…..What can I do? We can’t live the way we used to and they don’t seem to understand that.” Concern was also expressed by the mother’s that their children were attaching themselves to boyfriends and girlfriends at school. This was especially true with mother’s who had married early, they do not want their kids making the same mistakes that they had made. (Newman 1986, Grella 1990)