Do Judges Contribute to Gender Inequalities Following Divorce? An Empirical Analysis of the Determination of Alimony by French Judges

Drawing upon an exhaustive dataset of French court decisions involving a claim for alimony, this paper presents new findings on the determinants of the level of alimony set by judges in divorce cases. In particular, we show that the amount of alimony can be explained as the result of a twofold logic of compromise. The first is a compromise between the amount of alimony that peers would have set in this specific case and the proposal of the ex-spouses. The second is a compromise between the debtor’s proposal and the creditor’s proposal, with greater weight given to the debtor’s proposal. In this way, our results shed light on the mechanisms by which judges’ decisions have little effect on reducing postdivorce economic gender inequalities, even though the main function of alimony is to reduce the differences in couples’ living standards after divorce. This weak corrective effect can be explained by the overemphasis on the proposal of the debtor and by the fact that judges incorporate the peer norm, which is itself dragged down by the proposals of the debtors.