Purpose of the Study: Our study provides a national portrait of the Baby Boom generation, paying particular attention to the heterogeneity among unmarried Boomers and whether it operates similarly among women versus men. Design and Methods: We used the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Census 5% samples and the 2009 American Community Survey (ACS) to document…

Purpose: As Baby Boomers enter late life, relationships with family members gain importance. This review article highlights two aspects of their intergenerational relationships: (a) caregiving for aging parents and (b) interactions with adult children in the context of changing marital dynamics. Design and Methods: The researchers describe three…

Purpose: As part of an ongoing effort to analyze the distributional implications of potential policy reforms to the U.S. Social Security system, we consider the widely discussed reform of earnings sharing. Such an approach has been viewed as a way to "update" Social Security's family benefits based on marital status and as a means to…

Interviewed 37 grandparent couples with or without divorced children about their relationships with their families. Neither group was well informed about their children's marriages. Custody of the grandchildren affected contact with former in-law children and relationships with grandchildren. (JAC)

Studied health and finances among 1,782 older unmarried persons. Examined effect of financial strain on physical health over time and degree to which vulnerability to financial strain was linked to health. Found no evidence that financial strain contributed to poor health. (Author/NB)

Focuses on the effects divorces of children have on the kinship networks of the older generation. Found a common source of expansion among paternal grandmothers who retained relationships with their former daughters-in-law and her relatives at the same time that they added new relatives with sons' remarriages. (Author/ABB)

Questioned 80 grandmothers about interaction with grandchildren before and after the divorce of a child. Found that following divorce, grandmothers thought that their contact with grandchildren increased, as did time spent babysitting, teaching family history, and offering advice on personal problems. Geographic proximity and custodial status of…

Analyzed within-racial group differences in the determinants of living arrangements of widowed white (n=1,807), widowed nonwhite (n=269), divorced white (n=684), and divorced nonwhite (n=126) elderly women. Results indicated race was not just one explanatory variable but was the second most and the most crucial explanatory variable for widows and…

Used longitudinal data to investigate factors associated with evaluations of work, retirement, and well-being of 1,398 never-married, widowed, and divorced/separated men and women. Factors associated with evaluations tended to be similar across marital status. Formerly married women especially seemed to warrant attention of practitioners who plan…

Studied (N=212) women age 50 or over. Most mothers of divorced children indicated that the event had been negative -- traumatic, painful, and sad -- for them. The emotional effects of divorce on the mothers suggest that supportive alternatives should be made available for parents of the divorcing couple. (Author)

Compared patterns of coresidence with adult offspring for divorcees and widows aged 40 and over. Coresidence with offspring was most likely for recent widows in midlife and recent divorcees in later life. Older recent divorcees were less likely than recent widows to be household heads in these situations. Daughters appeared especially important in…

Conducted 40-month longitudinal study following role of grandmothers in 43 families during divorce processes of their children. Found most women provided major assistance to children and grandchildren, with younger grandmothers more active. Analysis of their expectations indicated women became more ambivalent and dissatisfied if they were forced…

Suggests reasons for expecting an increase in the divorce rate for the population over age 65. Knowledge about the effects of marital status upon well-being suggests that being divorced or separated is detrimental to one's social and economic welfare in old age. (Author)