By Catherine Fredman | Investopedia
It’s not easy growing old, and here’s one more piece of evidence. Divorce rates in the United States are declining—except for people over 50. Twenty years ago, just one in 10 spouses who split was age 50 or older; today, according to Dr. Susan Brown, professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University and co-author of The Gray Divorce Revolution, it is one in four. “If late-life divorce were a disease,” says Jay Lebow, a psychologist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, “it would be an epidemic.”
Why this surge in breakups? As people live longer, they have more opportunities to grow—and grow apart. As the kids grow up and move out, the glue that holds many marriages together dissolves. With more women working and becoming financially independent, and some of them out-earning their spouses, there is no longer a financial imperative to stay together. And with societal mores changing, there’s less stigma to ending a marriage and living as a single.