AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Are you one of those people who has stayed in a relationship because you genuinely doubted that you could ever do better? Or maybe you thought, look, it's hard enough to make new friends later in life, let alone find love later in life. Well, hold that thought because my next guest has some news for you. Brittany Luse is the host of NPRs It's Been a Minute, and once a month, she joins us to unpack surprising trends in culture. Hi, Brittany.
BRITTANY LUSE, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa. Here's my surprise. Did you know that overall divorce rates are down, except for one key demographic?
CHANG: What key demographic?
LUSE: People over 50.
CHANG: Oh, I could have told you that because that is exactly...
LUSE: (Laughter).
CHANG: ...What it looks like on the dating apps I'm on. There are so many 50-something-year-olds.
LUSE: Well, I'll say it's this trend that people are calling the gray divorce. And according to researchers I talked to, it's happening for a few reasons. First, we're living longer than past generations. Second, we are more culturally accepting of divorce than we have been in the past. And third, women in particular are more financially independent. And on top of all of that, Texas Tech University professor Dana Weiser, who studies human development and family sciences, she explained that across all generations, people just expect more from a marriage or partnership.
DANA WEISER: So that's one of the things that we can also see, is that we just have higher expectations. So if we go back, you know, why people got married was - they would say, oh, they're a nice enough person. They come from a good family.
LUSE: We have similar values. Yeah.
WEISER: And now we're expecting our partners to be, you know, our best friend, someone we want to have sex with, someone who's hopefully going to share in with household labor, be our main emotional support. So we just are having higher expectations for our relationships, which means then there's more opportunity to fall short of those expectations.
CHANG: Ah, true.
LUSE: Yeah. And, Ailsa, we're not only seeing a lower divorce rate for younger generations but lower rates of marriage for younger people too.
CHANG: Which is so interesting to me because I remember in my late 20s, a bunch of my friends got married, including myself, but I got divorced by the time I was 30. And I have to say that one of the factors that made that decision easier for me is that we didn't have kids. Life was still pretty simple financially. And now, I've been seeing friends going through divorces in, like, their 40s and 50s. And, yeah, it can be so much more complicated, so much more acrimonious sometimes, you know?
LUSE: Oh, absolutely. Professor Weiser and another professor of psychology I spoke with, Rosie Shrout from the University of British Columbia, they both emphasize the emotional difficulty of divorce as well as the difficulty of disentangling finances for older women. For example, Ailsa, there was this 2021 study on gray divorce that found, based on income, women felt a 45% drop in standard of living after divorce...
CHANG: Wow.
LUSE: ...Versus men's standard of living dropping 21%. But still, there's research that shows that the impact of a stressful marriage goes way beyond the financial.
ROSIE SHROUT: If that relationship is not good, if it is negative, hostile, filled with poor communication, is abusive, neglectful, that has extremely harsh effects on our health and wellbeing. And so being in a relationship - being in a bad relationship is much worse for our health than not being in a relationship.
CHANG: Oh, that goes without saying. Yes. I mean, I would rather be on my own than be in a bad relationship because life is too short to waste your energy on bad choices, you know?
LUSE: Listen, we are on the same page with that.
CHANG: Yeah.
LUSE: But, you know, the way I think of this is a bad relationship is a net negative. A good relationship is a net positive. And no relationship is a net neutral.
CHANG: OK (laughter). But tell us more about what dating looks like on the other side of this so-called gray divorce. I mean, speaking for myself, Brittany, as someone who does often date divorced men in their 40s and 50s, I have to say, it is so attractive to meet someone who knows what they want in life, who has worked on themself, who has learned from their mistakes and wants to do better, you know?
LUSE: Yeah, and that was really interesting to me as well because I think this is another way that generations are influencing one another. Professor Shrout explained to me that, especially for women over 50, autonomy was very important; that for many women, they seek divorce because they're craving a sense of independence. And one way that these older generations are partnering is through something called living apart together.
CHANG: Oh, my God. That is my dream. I want to be in a relationship with someone...
LUSE: (Laughter).
CHANG: ...But we each have our own house. I love having my own sanctuary, my own space. I never want to give up my space.
LUSE: Exactly.
CHANG: Do you think I'm relationship-ready? (Laughter).
LUSE: Listen, for those who have gray-divorced and are looking for love, you are right in the pocket. I mean, Professor Shrout talked about how this kind of partnership provided these women a sense of autonomy, a value that appeals to younger women too. So younger generations are modeling this higher expectation for relationships, and older generations are offering new ideas of how to structure relationships. It's pretty cool.
CHANG: I love that. Brittany, thank you so much for sharing all of this with us.
LUSE: Oh, my gosh. You're so welcome, Ailsa. Thank you for having me.
CHANG: That was Brittany Luse. She's the host of NPR's It's Been a Minute, a show about what is going on in culture.
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