It's been almost a year and a half now since Paul McCartney and Heather Mills announced their split, but the circus just rumbles on

When it comes to our personal experiences, divorce is often rated as more traumatic than even bereavement or watching The Jeremy Kyle Show; and yet, in the case of big money divorces, we apparently can't get enough. It's been almost a year and a half now since Paul McCartney and Heather Mills announced their split, but the circus just rumbles on. We ooooh at the stories of Paul's alleged cruelty, aaaaah at the tales of Heather's alleged lies, and yelp at old photos of Heather from the "educational sex manual" she once posed for.

As I write this, a few days before publication, negotiations in the McCartney divorce case are ongoing, with a court hearing scheduled for February if they fail to reach an agreement. Whether a deal is hammered out this week or in 2008 though, two things seem guaranteed. One, Mills will leave the marriage with a substantial sum of money. Two, the latest round of woman-bashing will begin. Because if anything really gets poison pens scribbling, it's a woman landing serious money in a divorce case.

In 2004, for instance, footballer Ray Parlour was ordered to pay his ex-wife, Karen - the mother of his three children - £406,500 a year, until a review scheduled for 2008. The level of the award caused a fuss, with Karen Parlour's solicitor noting that her client had been portrayed in the media as "money-grabbing, bitter and vindictive".

In 2006, Melissa Miller came in for an even worse drubbing when she was awarded £5m of her husband's substantial fortune, after a 33-month marriage that ended following his in fidelity. In court, Alan Miller's QC helpfully suggested that his client would have been better off financially if he had knocked his wife down with a car and caused her severe injury and brain damage - "at most, the damages would be £2m".

These cases dominate the headlines partly because they are so extreme. But their popularity also stems from the fact that they serve the interests of a large body of backlash commentators: journalists who love to argue that feminism has tipped the culture too far in women's favour, that men are being discriminated against, that the world is full of gold-diggers and bitches. And these cases are useful, because they allow them to deftly extrapolate from a few extremely unusual cases, to suggest that women across Britain are profiting handsomely from divorce, kicking their heels in the air as they exit the courts, before sinking on to a bed covered in banknotes.

The truth - surprise! - is just a little different.

Emotionally and financially, divorce does, of course, tend to be vile for both men and women. Speaking specifically of finances though, a study earlier this year showed that, while a man's income eventually recovers and increases by 11 per cent on average after a divorce, a woman's plummets by 17 per cent. This echoes a clutch of other studies over the past decade that have each shown slightly different figures but the same trend: divorce makes women poorer.

And there's more evidence. Earlier this year, the campaigning organisation the Fawcett Society found that, while women overall have an average of 33 per cent less savings than men, divorced women are particularly poor. This is due to a number of more or less obvious factors. One is that, if they have children, women are quite likely to have put the brakes on their career during marriage, and to find that they have even bigger caring responsibilities after divorce. Another is that, according to research by Scottish Widows, women tend to prioritise family spending and saving, while men focus on themselves.

And another disadvantage is the ongoing gender pay gap, which sees women being paid 17 per cent less than men for full-time work, and 38 per cent less for part-time work. For divorced women trying to fit in a job around caring for children, part-time work is, of course, quite a likely option. On top of all this, there's also the small matter of unpaid child support - the CSA estimates that 33 per cent of those who owe child support are "non-compliant".

The upshot is that, rather than bounding around buying handbags, divorced women often face considerable poverty as they age. In fact, in 2004, a report by the Office for National Statistics found that 40 per cent of divorced women over the age of 65 were poor enough to qualify for income support, compared with just 1 per cent of married women.

None of this is an argument for staying in an unhappy marriage, but an argument for more fairness, culturally and socially; and for individuals to commit to a little cold-eyed financial planning - arranging a pension, building up some personal savings - while in a relationship. And it's all worth bearing in mind over the coming months, as the latest high-stakes divorce cases inspire suggestions that women are bleeding men dry. This is far from the truth. But then, when did the truth ever get in the way of a good story?

Kira Cochrane is women's editor of the Guardian

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