Can I quit or change jobs during a divorce?
You can, and if your income drops a court may still base support on what you are capable of earning rather than what you are actually earning. That is called imputing income, and it is the reason a job change during a divorce gets more scrutiny than at any other time.
The distinction that matters is not how much you earn afterward. It is whether the change was your choice.
Quitting or taking less
If you leave a job voluntarily, or move to something that pays substantially less, expect to be asked why. Courts see income drop conveniently during divorces often enough to look at it closely.
Where a reduction looks deliberate, or where someone appears underemployed relative to their history and qualifications, many states will calculate support on earning capacity instead of on the paycheck. In practice, you can end up owing support based on a salary you are no longer receiving, which is the worst of both outcomes.
Good reasons exist and courts do accept them: health, caring for a child with real needs, a genuine career move that costs money now and earns more later, a role that became untenable. What they need is contemporaneous evidence rather than an explanation offered afterward.
If you are laid off
Different situation, and the response is time-sensitive.
File for modification immediately. Not when you find something, not when the arrears become alarming. No state will modify child support for a period before the change was requested, federal law requires that, and in some states the clock starts on service rather than filing, so file and serve both. Every week of delay is a week you still owe at the old rate, and that debt does not disappear. Modifying support after a job loss covers the mechanics.
Keep paying what you can. Partial payment shows good faith and reduces what accumulates.
Document the layoff and the job search. Termination letter, applications, interviews. This is what separates involuntary from voluntary six months later when someone asks.
Taking a better job
Generally fine, and worth knowing that support may be recalculated upward as a result. That is not a reason to turn down a promotion; it is a reason not to be surprised.
Timing gets noticed. A significant raise that begins the week after support is set, which you knew about during negotiations and did not mention, is a disclosure problem rather than an income problem, and disclosure problems damage credibility across the whole case.
Returning to work
If you stepped back from paid work during the marriage, returning is usually a positive in every direction: it reduces what you need, it demonstrates good faith, and it starts rebuilding an earning history that took a real hit.
It may reduce spousal support, which people worry about. In most circumstances the arithmetic still favors working, and this is a specific question worth putting to your attorney rather than deciding by instinct.
Do not rush into the first thing available to look cooperative. Courts generally allow a reasonable period to find suitable work rather than expecting anything immediately.
Three practical things
Health insurance. Changing jobs mid-divorce can create a coverage gap at the same moment you may be losing access to a spouse's plan. Check the new employer's waiting period before you resign anything. And if you are coming off your spouse's plan, telling that plan about the divorce is your job. Nobody else does it and nobody will remind you, the window is about 60 days, and missing it ends your right to COBRA altogether. If you think you are already past 60 days, tell them anyway, because the count often starts later than the decree does.
Retirement. A job change often means a new plan and sometimes a rollover, both of which complicate a division that is already in progress. Tell your attorney before you move an account.
Tell your attorney first. Not after. A job change is one of the few things that alters the arithmetic of an entire case, and it is much easier to plan around than to explain.
Whether and how income can be imputed, and what evidence a court expects, vary by state. If your work situation is changing while a case is open, that is worth a conversation with a licensed family-law attorney before you hand in a resignation.