Multiple Gray Divorces: Demographic Trends & Comparisons

The divorce rate for adults aged 50 and older (“gray divorce”) doubled from 1990 to 2010 (Brown & Lin, 2012), and reached a plateau in the past decade (Cohen, 2019). Still, nearly 40% of divorcing persons are aged 50 and older (Brown & Lin, 2022). Gray divorce slightly dropped following the onset of the pandemic (Brown et al, 2024). Some older adults experience gray divorce more than once during later life, a phenomenon we refer to as “multiple gray divorces.” Some people repartner post-gray divorce (Brown et al., 2019) and individuals in a remarriage have an elevated risk of divorce (Brown & Lin, 2012). Those who divorce only once in later life are likely to differ from those who experience multiple gray divorces. In this family profile, we estimate the share of older adults aged 50 and older who experienced one or multiple gray divorces using nationally representative data from the 1998 - 2018 Health and Retirement Study. We also examine variation by race-ethnicity and educational attainment among older men and women who have had one versus multiple gray divorces.