This week, I’m talking about gray divorce. Gray divorce refers to the skyrocketing trend of divorce rates among those age 50 and older. While the overall divorce rate has declined from 1990 to 2015, it actually doubled during that same time period for Americans over the age of 50. For those age 65 and older, the divorce rate has tripled, and that poses a big problem for your finances in retirement. 

Today, I’m laying the groundwork to talk about this growing trend and why it’s of special importance and significance for the over 50 crowd, especially since you are so close to retirement.

Among people in my own circle of family, friends, acquaintances, and clients, I have certainly seen an uptick in gray divorce over the last several years - something that seemed a lot more rare when I was growing up. If someone I knew was getting a divorce, it was always a couple in their 20s or 30s, but now the research backs up what I’ve seen anecdotally - and that is the prevalence of divorce rates among baby boomers. 

The main financial problem with gray divorce is that the asset split that happens in nearly every divorce cuts your wealth in half. Research from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research found that someone getting divorced after age 50 can expect their wealth to drop by about 50%. And unlike someone who divorces in their 20s and 30s, you’ve nearly run out of time to make up for that lost wealth since you’re so close to retirement. So unless you want to keep working until well into your 70s, it’s going to be very hard to regain your lost ground. 

Someone once told me that the secret to building wealth is: don’t switch cars and don’t switch spouses. And I think there’s a lot of truth to that, so tomorrow, I’m going to talk about what’s behind the trend of gray divorce and why so many 50 and 60-somethings are calling it quits. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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