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- [00:08]
A
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. I wanted to preview some of the conversations we'll be having on the show this week. Tomorrow we're going to talk about some of the best places to get coffee in the city. This week marks National Coffee Week and we'll celebrate with some non traditional spots. So think about it. Get ready to call in and share your ideas tomorrow. The Hudson Festival Jazz Festival is taking place this weekend and musician Joel Ross will preview the festival and perform live in WNYC Studio 5. And on Friday, two personal finance experts join us to talk about preparing for retirement. That's in the future. But right now, let's get this hour started with a conversation about the 1 demographic in America experiencing rising divorce rates. Yesterday, news broke that celebrity couple Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are separating. After nearly 20 years together, both in their late 50s, they will fall into the category of the gray divorce, the phenomenon of those over 50 who are ending their marriages. While the rates of US divorces have declined since the 70s and 80s, there is one demographic that that is rising, those over 50 and especially those over 65. Those numbers have tripled. The term was coined in a 2012 study and it's been the subject of books and studies in recent years. There's even a Gray divorce podcast. But what is propelling the change and what does it mean for family relationships as well as aging? Dana Weiser and Rosie Shao are both professionals who research relationship. Dana Weiser is a professor at Texas Tech University where she charts the Human Development and Family Sciences Department. Hi Dana.
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B
Hi.
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A
And Rosie Shroud is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in psychology. It's nice to meet you as well.
- [02:05]
B
Hi, thanks for having us listeners.
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A
We wanna know, are you a gray divorcee? How has your late life divorce affected your social life, your relationship with your kids, your identity, identity? We wanna hear from you. Or did your parents split up late in life? How did it affect you? Our 2124-3396-9221-2433-WNYC. You can call in and join the conversation or you can text to us as well. Let's start with a little bit of the good news. Divorce rates have been falling in the United States. Rosie, what explanations would you give for why divorce rates are falling overall?
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B
Absolutely. So, yeah, so divorce rates have been pretty steady for a while. About one in two marriages do end in divorce, so it's still about 50%. But we've seen this steady decrease over time for a few different reasons. Some is that fewer people are getting married than ever before, or they're also getting married later than they typically did. So we saw people in their early twenties often getting married, and now we're seeing it more in the mid to late 20s. And so people are waiting a little bit longer. They also are more likely to take that time to develop their economic independence. And so they have a little bit of more economic stability by the time they get married. And so that also helps sustain a longer marriage over time. And we are seeing with this older adult population, if they do experience a divorce, they're also less likely to remarry. They might choose to cohabitate to date, but they're another percentage of the population that is of they're able to be married, but they're choosing not to. And so there's quite a few different reasons why we're seeing this pretty steady about 50% of marriages ending in divorce.
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C
Dana, I want to give you a chance. You were nodding along. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
- [03:55]
D
Sure. I think also part of people not getting married as young is you're also just much more emotionally mature. So we've known for a while that getting married before the age of 25 can actually be a risk factor for divorce. And it's because still in young adulthood, you're cognitively developing, you're developing socio emotional skills still. And so we can see people who are getting married a little bit later, even still in early adulthood and middle adulthood, they're just in a better place of how to communicate. We can see that conflict is quite high, particularly in younger couples. So that also helps to explain the trend a little bit related to the fact that people are getting married at older ages.
- [04:44]
C
So, Rosie, when do we start to see this shift in older adults considering divorce?
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B
Yeah, so we've started to see it over the last decade or so. And it's been interesting for a lot of reasons, and I think particularly because we are living longer than we used to, we have this increased longevity. And so people are less willing to endure an unhappy marriage and they're more optimistic that they'll find another partner. So people are divorcing and dating well into their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
- [05:19]
C
Dana, what are some of the factors influencing this trend for gray divorce?
- [05:25]
D
It is a lot to deal with public policies that it is certainly easier to get a divorce than it had been in previous generations, just legally speaking. Divorce is also just more socially acceptable. So if we think about older generations previously, they grew up in a culture where Divorce was really highly stigmatized, whereas for our older adults now or even middle adulthood, we have multiple generations who have grown up in a climate where divorce is much less stigmatized. So they're more likely to consider divorce when they're in an unhappy relationship. A big part, too is also women are more highly educated, more financially independent. So we can see women of all ages are less dependent on a romantic relationship than they used to be. And so it's much easier. Not that divorce is ever easy, but people are more able to exit relationships that are unsatisfying or in fact, very unhealthy.
- [06:32]
C
I'm speaking with Professors Dana Weiser and Rosie Shroud about the phenomenon of gray divorce, why it's on the rise, how it's affecting family dynamics. We want to hear from you. Are you involved in a gray divorce? How was it it late your. How has your late in life divorce affected your social life, your relationship with your kids, your well being? We'd like to hear from you. 212-433-W NYC 212-433-9692. Let's take a call. This is Jean calling in from Montclair. Hi, Jean, thanks for making time to call all of it.
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B
You're on the air.
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E
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. I just want to say as I was waiting on hold, I was also listening to Jane and Rosie and everything they said describes me as far as being financially being able to be on my own, highly educated, etc. I am not in a divorce right now, but I was talking to the person who was taking the calls that after marriage counseling and it just, there was no resolution for me. So I am going ahead with getting a divorce. My husband is absolutely set against it. And I just, for me personally, I have a better outlook on life as I'm getting older. And I just don't feel that the person I'm going to possibly in my life with is the person I'm with right now.
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C
Thank you so much for calling. We wish you the very best. Dana, you know how many people in.
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A
This demographic have been married just a really long time? This isn't like their second marriage or third marriage. This was their first marriage.
- [08:24]
D
Sure. There is some data on that actually from the Pew Institute. And so we can see that for a lot of individuals who are ages 50 and older who are getting divorced, it is actually their second marriage marriage. And so, and we can see that people who are getting remarried, they do have a higher likelihood of getting divorced compared to individuals who are in their first marriage. Um, and we can also see that even among those individuals who are 50 plus, these divorces are typically happening for people who have been married shorter periods of time. So 20 years or less, which, you know, in the grand scheme of things is still a long time together. But there are definitely people who are getting divorced after 30 plus years together as well. And, you know, to add on to your caller, we also see that it is more likely that women are the ones who are initiating divorce. So that certainly maps onto the research as well.
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A
Rosie, why are women initiating the divorce?
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B
Yeah, absolutely. So the caller really, I think, resonated with me a lot, especially hearing directly from someone. I think so much of the time, Dana and I are not actually being able to speak to people one on one. And so hearing that, hearing what they were saying, you know, really does align with what the research shows. Women are more likely to initiate a divorce. And that's really across any generation. And in particular among older women, for this, for the first time in our recent history, they can divorce. They're not financially dependent on their partner like they historically have been. And a lot of women are after, after initiating this divorce. Of course there's grief, there's loneliness, there's guilt, but they are experiencing this freedom, this happiness, this liberation that they hadn't felt in years, and they're actually happier after the divorce. And so I think for women too, of this generation, seeing their friends or their loved ones also divorcing or separating from a marriage that's been unhappy for a long time, they're also being able to experience that and thinking, you know, maybe I could do that for myself and I can be okay. And so I will say that there is typically this economic toll on women where women are more economically facing hardship after divorce. And just because women have more economic independence than we historically had, we still have less than men. And so for older women, there's still this important part of understanding the finances and making sure to speak to somebody, a financial advisor, someone who can help get through that divorce. It shouldn't be a reason to stay in the marriage anymore.
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C
Here's a text that says, I noticed in my gray relationships that they are all new life stressors that make relationships more challenging. And I wonder if maybe a certain lack of supports in our country are part of what are stressing out relationships and not the reason, but contributing to divorce, the financial harm, hardships, as well as not enough social support for older parents. And maybe after expecting some time for relationships to have some space, they don't have that. Another texter said a Lot of adults over 60 get legally separated or divorced to alleviate health care costs, especially when one partner is going through a debilitating illness like cancer. There are more grants available for treatment when a person has no assets. Let's Talk to Laszlo online 2 calling in from Eau Claire, New Jersey. Hi, Laszlo, thank you so much for calling, all of it. You're on the air.
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F
Thanks for having me. The reason I'm calling in is 13 years ago I got separated and in two months I quit smoking, which I had done for 35 years. So I haven't smoked for 13 years. And I got married three weeks ago to a lovely woman. And we have a very comfortable relationship. And my life has tremendously improved by having a very supportive partner, which I don't feel like I had before, even though I didn't initiate the divorce. The other thing I wanted to add a year ago when we decided to get divorced, I mean, divorce married, I mentioned to my older daughter that I'm getting married. And instead of saying, congratulations, Daddy, she said, that's great, I'm gaining a new sister.
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C
Oh, that's a lovely statement. Thank you so much for calling. Let's talk to Frank, who's calling in from Queens. Hi, Frank, thank you so much for making the time to call.
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B
All of it.
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C
You had a question?
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F
Sure, sure. I'm just wondering, as I'm listening, if there's any part of the study or studies that have been done relative to the increase in divorce in gray divorce, if it's more prevalent in couples that have like a bigger age disparity between them, perhaps related in some way to the age at which people may have their own parents die or may receive some sort of an inheritance or something like that. Are those factors? Have those been studied at all?
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D
So there is a little bit of research looking at age gap relationships, although there is not a ton in this area. But there is some research that suggests being in an age gap relationship, which is usually people that there's things, different definitions, but it's often seven or more years apart, that this can be a stress on relationships, especially, as you alluded to, they might be dealing with different problems like caregiving for elderly parents, or some people might still be deep into raising children. So there is a little bit of research, although I just saw a study come across that for gender also plays a role, so that for older women partnered with younger men, it can sometimes be a very successful partnership. And that is because they're much more equitable. So I think you're onto something that there could be a lot more research on of how do age gaps perhaps influence individuals divorce rates or why they get divorced as well?
- [14:54]
A
My guests are Dana Weiser, professor at Texas Tech University, and Rosie Shroud, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, talking about gray divorce, divorce after the age of 50. We'll have more after a quick break. This is ALL of it. You are listening to ALL of IT on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We are talking about the gray divorce. Our guests are Dana Weiser, professor at Texas Tech University, and Rosie Shroud, assistant professor at University of British Columbia. We are talking about people who get divorces after the age of 50. If you'd like to weigh in, how has your late life divorce affected your social life, your relationship with your kids, your wellbeing? We want to hear from you. Maybe your parents split up when later in life? How did it affect you? 212-433-WNYC 212-433-9692. This is a question for both of you. I asked you to go first, Rosie. When parents have been married long enough.
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C
To have adult children and they split.
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A
Up, how does it affect those children.
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C
Who are not children anymore, who are adults themselves?
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B
Absolutely. So I'm actually gonna let Dana take this one with her. Well, yeah, she has excellent work on intergenerational trends, so I'm gonna let her start with this.
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D
Thanks, Rosie. Yeah. So most of my research is on how family experiences are related to adults and beliefs about relationships and their behavioral patterns and relationships. And so the answer is it can be extremely impactful. So our parents are often our first socialization agent about what? About romantic relationships, about how to communicate, how to navigate conflict, beliefs about marriage as an institution. And so you grow up getting a lot of different messages depending on the quality of relationship your parents have, how openly they communicate and constructively resolve conflict, as well as whether they got divorced or perhaps never were even married to begin with. So you're learning a lot of different types of messages. And that doesn't stop because you're an adult. And so we can see for adult children whose parents get divorced, it can actually be kind of a big shakeup because they might have had this one expectation of what relationships look like. And then their parents getting divorced might kind of shake the foundation of what their belief systems are about marriage, about relationships, about divorce. Of course, they might also have grown up in a household where their parents were really having a lot of conflict. And so they might also be relieved of seeing their parents separate and have the potential to pursue happiness outside of this institution of marriage. So it probably depends a lot on what the relationship looked like and explanation as to why they got divorced, too. As far as impact, Rosie, we've heard about that.
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C
Men have a social penalty and women have an economic penalty. Would you explain those for us?
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B
Absolutely. So, yeah, so this economic penalty is similar to what we were talking about a little bit earlier of women just having less financial stability and resources compared to men. And so leaving a relationship after many years could pose more financial consequences for them. And for men, though, there's this pattern that we're seeing where they might be feeling a little bit adrift from their families after divorce. And this is, I think, pretty consistent with some of the literature. And so we do know that women, for instance, grow up learning to prioritize and spend time with people they care about. And so they think about relationships. They're told to, you know, to care for other people from a very young age. You know, the first toy that someone is often given a young girl is a doll being told to take care of this dol. So it's just part of our culture. And men aren't really given the same caregiving messages that women are given. And so throughout adulthood, especially in relationships and marriage, we're seeing that women are the ones caring for other people, caring for their children, caring for their spouse, caring for their adult parents. And men are not necessarily doing this. And women also are more likely to nurture those friendships, and men are more likely to benefit from women's friendships. And so after divorce, men might have been relying on their partner for reason, some support. They might have been relying on their partner for friends, for spending time with their children. And so they might need to then learn how to do some of this themselves as an adult and to really nurture those relationships outside of the marriage so that they're not feeling as adrift as they might be if. If they didn't have the time and dedication to those relationships.
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C
We've got two very different texts here. This says, I've been married. It feels like my whole life I thought about separating and chickened out. Now my husband, 17 years my senior, is disabled, and I can't le. I feel like I missed my opportunity, am unstuck, amstuck. On the other end, we have this text. I'm much happier now that I'm divorced. I was married for almost 40 years to a man who I had to tippy toe around constantly trying to please him. I was more educated than him, although he was very intelligent. And I earned More money than him. So I had the freedom to live without him. Let's talk to Nancy, who is calling in from Manhattan. Hi, Nancy, thank you so much for calling, all of it. You're on the air.
- [20:34]
G
Great, thanks for having me. So I work with women and I wrote a book about this topic, the Emotionally Exhausted Woman. But there is a point, and it generally happens around 50, where women wake up and they realize that they know who they are in all their roles, they know what everyone else wants in their life, and then they have no idea what they want and they have no idea, wait, where have I been? I've raised kids. I've been who he needs me to be or she needs me to be. And then this major transformation seems almost developmentally programmed into us where we say, wait, what about me? And this, this dreadful idea that we would make it about us. Right. The messaging always from the beginning, don't make it about you. And women start to screaming around that time, saying, what about what I want? And often they look over and they say, it might not be this.
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C
Nancy, thank you for calling in. Did you want to respond at all or add anything to what Nancy said?
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D
Sure. You know, there is a lot of research on inequity and division of labor in mixed gender couples. And what we can see is that typically men who are partnered with women benefit tremendously as far as emotional support, instrumental support, caregiving, household labor, whereas women might not be benefiting as much because it there are these expectations of social support as well as still offering, you know, a lot of instrumental support in a household. We can see even with women's increases in education and entering the job market, women are still doing more household labor compared to men. And so we can see that, you know, oftentimes the reason why women are the ones initiating breakups and divorce is because they literally have more to complain about in relationships.
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A
Let's talk to Richard, who's calling in from Westchester. Hey, Richard, thank you so much for calling all of it. You're on the air.
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E
Hello.
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F
Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I'm calling in because I think there's an aspect that I haven't heard discussed and that is that as people get older and older, they become much more liable to dementia. And I'm just looking around, I see that in a lot of my contacts. I'm 89 years old, by the way. The thing is that the early stages of dementia are a long way from terminal, but very, very often the personality of will change, as in the early stages of dementia. So you're able to find yourself married, currently married to someone that wasn't the person you married.
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A
Richard, thank you so much for raising that. Really, really good point. We have to talk about the effects of aging and caretaking and how you factor all of those issues into this big issue of do we end this marriage or don't we? Rosie, what are the kind of things that people should think about?
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B
Absolutely. So across the callers, I've heard some themes of their health. We've seen both the I was in a bad marriage and I was unhealthy, unhappy and I got remarried and I'm so happy and so supported. And that is directly aligned with the research. Being in relationships are typically good for our health when the relationship is also good. So being in a bad marriage, a bad relationship that is detrimental to our health. And so we can see this too in adulthood when people are more likely to develop age related disease and chronic disorders, that those relationships become even more important to have a support system. And this is where you're thinking about interventions and subsidies. I know for New York, for instance, has paid family leave that goes above federal leave, that provides job protection and paid time off so that families can take care of each other, their children, their spouses, their parents. And this relieves some of the burden that spouses face to help take care of each other. To then have more of a broad support system that is providing money as well as time that is so important for these families to support each other.
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C
Looking for oh, go ahead Dana.
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D
Oh, I was going to say too. I you know, to Rosie's point, you know, committed romantic partnerships are important, but they are not the most important. They're not the only way of having important meaningful relationships and supporting a partner who's dealing with a chronic illness, especially one like dementia, where their personality changes, their ability to communicate and be that partner changes is particularly difficult. So partners who are supporting their loved one really do need to make the extra effort to seek out other sources of support. And that might mean having a really close emotional confidant that one might not have had that same kind of emotional relationship previously in a marriage but are looking for someone who can be that go to person for them because that caregiving is something that's being cited a lot in our discipline and it is tough and should certainly be recognized that there is a lot of lack of emotional support, instrumental support and policy support.
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C
I want to read this text. I met my husband in college when we were both 20. At 50 years old, I realized when my children became independent teenagers that I would be stuck, man, keeping my husband for the rest of my life. I was the breadwinner and wanted to live my own life. I moved out. My children see how happy I am and are supportive. Their father is like a friend to them. They still come for me for life advice and support. I love my life and I feel more confident and free. And. Let's take Barbara from Trenton as our last caller. Hi, Barbara.
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E
Hello. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I can't believe it. Yeah, so I've been married for 27 years, and I literally just kind of picked up and left my husband finally after a very, very, you know, long, kind of unhappy married marriage. He's not a terrible person by any means, but was just not good. And my son is 24. And he said, you know, mom, I just wish you guys had done this so much sooner. It's been painful. And he used to so sad. He used to try to bring us together when he was little. He would try to make us hold hands and make us hug and things like that. And I just, I don't know, I just couldn't do it when I was little or sorry when he was little. And so he, he also said there was someone else on that called in that said something about children, you know, that he, my son said he hopes that I find someone who has kids so that he can have a brother or sister. So anyway, it's, yeah. And it just happened. I mean, it was literally August 31st.
- [28:17]
C
Barbara, we wish you the best. We wish you and your family the very best. As we're wrapping up this segment, is there anything you want people to think about when they're thinking about whether or not to go through a divorce, if they've been through a divorce, anything that we haven't touched on? Dana, do you want to take that?
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D
Sure. You know, I just, I'm really just in awe of that most recent caller because that is brave. And this is this narrative that we see a lot, that people feel like they have to stay together for the sake of their children. And what we see across research for many, many years now is that children fare better when their parents are happy. And growing up in a high conflict, unhappy home is hard, not only on the parents, but also on the children, too. So recognizing that while no one gets married and plans on getting divorced, sometimes divorce can be the best resolution for both adults as well as children. And to know that it's not easy to get divorced, there is a lot of emotional and social, social and financial turmoil involved with it. But there are a number of people who feel better off. And it's a new start. And given how long we are going to live, people deserve to be happy and in control of their futures.
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A
Rose, anything you wanted to add?
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B
Yeah, absolutely. I'll, I'll echo. You know, you're not alone. I think if you're listening to this, you can, you've heard so many different callers talk about this, their experiences, how hard it can be, but also how liberating it can be. And we are living so much longer and so taking the time to really enjoy adulthood. That's what we're seeing. People are pursuing second careers after retirement. They're pursuing higher education. They're dating. There's apps to help them date. And so it's a time of autonomy and growth and opportunity like it's never been before for older adults.
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A
Dana Weiser and Rosie Shroud, thank you so much for joining us.
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C
Thank you.
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H
Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. Since then, New York Public Radio's rigorous journalism has gone on to win a Peabody Award and a Dupont Columbia Award, among others. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.