New York, United States

America is in the grip of a new trend of sorts, where a rising number of people are now living alone. Census data shows that in the nation, there are nearly 38 million adults who are living by themselves, and nearly half of these are older Americans.

Advertisment

Experts predict that the numbers are set to rise in coming years. Here's all you need to know about this trend and a phenomenon called grey divorces that is fuelling it.

Old and alone?

As per census data, nearly 16 million people aged 65 and older were living solo in 2022. This is three times the number of older Americans living alone in the 1960s.

Advertisment

CBS News reports that there are many reasons behind this shift in the society — including the economic gains made by women after entering the workforce and the changing attitudes towards marriage.

Also read | Explainer | Why is toxic fan behaviour becoming the new norm at concerts?

While researching on single households, researchers stumbled upon something called 'grey divorces'.

Advertisment

What are grey divorces?

The term 'grey divorce' was popularised about a decade ago by Susan L. Brown, co-director of the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University. It refers to the divorce of people over the age of 50, sometimes after decades of marriage.

"Well over a third of people who are getting divorced now are over the age of 50," says Brown. 

"We just can't ignore that group anymore."

Also read | Explained | Spacecraft Mission Operations, the science that's steering Chandrayaan-3 to the Moon

Researchers found that between 1990 and 2010, in the US, divorce rates for people over the ages of 50 have doubled. The rise has continued over the years and is still going strong.

Some recent example of grey divorces that made the headlines are Bill and Melinda Gates, and more recently Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, who just this week announced separation after 27 years of marriage.

Divorce trends

Grey divorces are on a rise, both among celebrities and the general public, reports CBS. As per Brown, while divorce rates overall are declining, "older adults are really bucking the trend," this is especially true for those over 65 years of age.

"This means more and more people are going to be ageing, probably, alone, and outside of marriage, certainly," she says.

Susan Myres, a family law specialist based in Houston, says that while it may sound illogical to end a marriage this late in life, there are actually plenty of reasons behind this.

Also read | Explained | Rare 'brain-eating amoeba' haunts US, kills Georgia resident 

"I had one client tell me, 'I do not want to die next to that man – I'm out'," she recalls.

This as per her happens when couples sometimes drift too far apart. In other cases, this is due to abuse or even shocking transgressions. Many older adults, especially those in their 80s, feel whatever time they have left is too precious to spend with the wrong person.

How pandemic helped rock the boat

Myers says that the pandemic has also contributed to this awakening.

As the world battled the Covid pandemic, more and more people realised the difference in opinions, perspective them and their partners may have when in comes to a number of things, like masks, vaccine, etc.

A CNN report from January 2022 showed that this difference of opinion also stretched to the vaccination of children. 

Life as a single, older adult

As per the report, grey divorces also come with some financial troubles for the couple. Traditionally, couples tend to create a "nest egg" together. This means they save money for their old age, together.

Divorce cuts this in half, and some have reported a significant drop in their standard of living after a divorce later in life.

That being said, the rising trend of people living together isn't merely fuelled by 'grey divorce'. Many older people living on their own as per the researchers were widowed and a growing share reported never being married.

"There are many more of us than people realise who don't see living single or living alone as some sort of burden, but instead embrace it as something that we really just love," says researcher and psychologist Bella DePaulo.

Trend set to intensify

Currently, around 28 per cent of people over the ages of 65 are living alone in the US. This number has, for the most part, stayed consistent in recent years. 

However, as per CBS News, this number is climbing, as the Baby Boomer generation — most of them aged 59 to 77 — gets older.

Sociologist Markus Schafer of Baylor University says this trend is a "two-sided phenomenon." On one hand, people are enjoying a greater autonomy, on the other, they are 'lonely'.

Many studies have pointed to the fact that loneliness and social isolation come with significant health consequences. Most recently, in April, a study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH/FHI) revealed that the end of a marriage could bring an individual serious cognitive health problems. Researches analysed the marital status of people aged 44 to 68 years over a 24-year period and found that a person's marital status affects their chances of clinical diagnosis of dementia or mild cognitive impairment after the age of 70.

(With inputs from agencies)

WATCH WION LIVE HERE

You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.