Fair Shares Project

How fair are financial arrangements on divorce?

Around 100,000 couples divorce annually in England and Wales and the financial arrangements they make can determine the future standard of living that they and their children will have for many years to come. Only a third of them use the legal system to sort out their finances, with the rest negotiating their own arrangements or, worse, reaching no settlement at all. Very little is known about the detailed financial arrangements couples make, or how they work out. This study aims to fill this gap to help shape the law and provide practical guidance to couples going through divorce in the future.

The Research
Fair Shares is a project funded by the Nuffield Foundation which aims to find out the financial and property arrangements that divorcing couples make, how they come to these arrangements and how they cope with the post-divorce set-up.
Objectives
The research aims to provide essential data to inform current debates on how the law should be reformed. It will also offer practical guidance to legal advisers, advice and support providers so that the financial needs of families can be better met in future.
The Team
Fair Shares is led by Professor Emma Hitchings (Bristol University) in partnership with Caroline Bryson and Dr Susan Purdon (Bryson Purdon Social Research) and Professor Gillian Douglas, Professor Emerita at King’s College London.

Fair Shares final report

Fair Shares Report (PDF, 5,335kB)

Fair Shares Report - Executive Summary (PDF, 1,226kB)

Fair Shares Report - short briefing (PDF, 521kB)

Further Publications

Fair Shares - DA - Report (PDF, 2,634kB)

Fair Shares - DA - Briefing paper (PDF, 1,942kB)

Fair Shares - Spousal Maintenance - Report (PDF, 2,163kB)

Fair Shares - Child arrangements and financial settlement - Report (PDF, 2,533kB)

Fair Shares - Understanding of the law around finances and property on divorce (PDF, 2,145kB)

‘Divorce is a life-changing financial event for families. It has short and long-term financial consequences for the parties with respect to their income, property division and pensions. Although the larger money divorce cases which go through the courts generate a substantial amount of attention in the press, what happens in relation to the finances and property of the majority of the divorcing population is something that academics and policy-makers know very little about. This large-scale study of financial settlements on divorce aims to fill that gap and generate a picture of what happens across the divorcing population.’

Professor Emma Hitchings