Friday, March 2, 2012

More Americans Entering Older Age Live Alone

From The New York Times "More Americans Rejecting Marriage in 50s and Beyond" by Rachel L Swarns:
Over the past 20 years, the divorce rate among baby boomers has surged by more than 50 percent, even as divorce rates over all have stabilized nationally. At the same time, more adults are remaining single. The shift is changing the traditional portrait of older Americans: About a third of adults ages 46 through 64 were divorced, separated or had never been married in 2010, compared with 13 percent in 1970, according to an analysis of recently released census data conducted by demographers at Bowling Green State University, in Ohio.

Sociologists expect those numbers to rise sharply in coming decades as younger people, who have far lower rates of marriage than their elders, move into middle age.
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The elderly, who have traditionally relied on spouses for their care, will increasingly struggle to fend for themselves.
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Most unmarried baby boomers are living alone....

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