this coverage gap, just 1 in 5 part-time workers who work a full year are eligible for a retirement plan, and women are almost twice as likely to work part-time as men. (9) While traditional defined benefit retirement plans have spousal protections, defined contribution retirement plans, which have become increasingly common, currently provide no similar spousal protections. (10) The Thrift Savings Plan of the Federal Government, the largest defined contribution plan in the world with approximately 6,500,000 participants, requires its married participants to have their spouses consent for withdrawals and loans. (11) There were almost 700,000 divorces in the United States between 2020 and 2021. After the family home, retirement savings tends to be the largest asset to be divided in a divorce. (12) While fees and expenses associated with retirement plans have been in decline, participants have seen direct charges for processing qualified domestic relations orders increase significantly. 3. Increasing spousal protection under defined contribution plans (a) Amendment of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (1) In general Part 2 of subtitle B of title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ( 29 U.S.C. 1051 et seq. ) is amended by inserting after section 205 the following new section: 205A. Additional spousal consent requirements (a) In general Each individual account plan to which section 205 does not apply shall provide that, except as provided in subsections (c) and (d), no distribution may be made under the plan unless the spousal consent requirements of subsection (e) are met. (b) Coordination with section 205 Nothing in this section shall be construed to exempt an individual account plan from the requirements of paragraph (1)(B), (1)(C), or (2) of section 205(b) with respect to any participant. (c) Exceptions for certain distributions Subsection (a) shall not apply to— (1) any distribution that is— (A) a minimum required distribution described in section 4974(b) of the Internal