Abstract
Free agents who enter old age with their marriages intact will be the lucky ones. They will account for most of the affluent elderly, with two Social Security checks and possibly two pensions in retirement. Couples will travel together and explore new interests. They may find their marriages improving after years of struggle. Studies show that midlife is hard on marriage. Marital satisfaction hits a low as parents raise preschoolers, the demands of children leaving little emotional energy for a spouse. But in later life, when children are grown and retirement allows husbands and wives to spend more time together, couples often experience a “second honeymoon.”
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Reference
Marital satisfaction hits ... Timothy H. Brubaker, “Families in Later Life: A Burgeoning Research Area,” Journal of Marriage & the Family, vol. 52, no. 4 (November 1990), 962.
Social science studies show ... Ibid., 971.
About 15 percent of baby boomers ... U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Studies in American Fertility,” 9.
Studies show, however, that childless ... Brubaker, “Families in Later Life,” 968.
The unmarried, childless old ... Ibid.
As the number of elderly Americans ... author’s calculations from U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March 1990,” Current Population Reports, Series P20, no. 450 (May 1991), 13.
From the age of 55 on, in fact ... U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Marital Status: 1990,” 13, 17.
Only half of women aged 65 ... Ibid., 12.
The chances are seven out of ten ... Noreen Goldman and Graham Lord, “Sex Differences in Life Cycle Measures of Widowhood,” Demography, vol. 20, no. 2 (May 1983), 185.
According to projections by the Social ... U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Sixty-Five Plus in America,” 6–2.
Among men aged 65 or older in 2040 ... Ibid.
In 1920, women outlived men ... Goldman and Lord, 178.
In 1920, there were only 1.4 million ... U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics, 21; U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Marital Status: 1990,” 17; author’s calculations from U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Sixty-Five Plus in America,” 6–2; U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Population Projections of the United States, by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: 1992 to 2050,” Current Population Reports, Series P25, no. 1092 (November 1992), 52.
The number of elderly widowers ... Ibid.
A 65-year-old woman today can ... Goldman and Lord, “Sex Differences,” 179.
In the 1890s, a woman had only ... Ibid., 185, 188.
According to mortality projections ... U.S. Bureau of the Census, “Sixty-Five Plus in America,” 6–3.
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© 1993 Cheryl Russell
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Russell, C. (1993). Old and Alone. In: The Master Trend. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6016-0_29
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-6016-0_29
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