Surveys on the traditional view that women are happy at home tend to show that the lives of both career women and full-time homemakers include a mixture of satisfactions and problems. Many of the differences between black and white families is that there are more black female-headed households. This, however, is probably due to poverty and lack of education. Divorce used to be more likely among people with a high school education than among those who had completed college, and more frequent among the poor than among members of the middle and upper-middle classes. In recent years the divorce rate has risen among college-educated couples and those in higher socioeconomic groups.
Women tend to suffer most from divorce, especially emotionally and financially.
Most husbands and fathers stop supporting their families after divorce unless legally required to. In a 10-15 year study of 131 children of divorce, some were better off than had they stayed in an unhappy family setting. However, others suffered because of the instability of the parents who could not meet the challenges of parenting and instead depended on the children to help them cope with their own problems. Responsibility overload - single parents who must make all the decisions and provide for all the needs of their families. Task overload - working, housekeeping, and parenting take up so much time that there is none left to meet unexpected demands.