Abstract
In Gray Divorce, Jocelyn Elise Crowley investigates the reasons for and consequences of midlife divorce for American women and men. Nowadays, one in four divorces in the United States occurs at or after the age of 50. This new trend, which Crowley coins “gray divorce,” emerges with the increasing acceptance of divorce, spread of no-fault divorce laws, and growing life expectancy among Americans. While current studies on later life divorce mostly rely on survey responses, this book is based on in-depth interviews with 40 men and 40 women who were once in heterosexual marriages and experienced at least one gray divorce. The book is a pioneer in examining this recent phenomenon through rich personal narratives.
A primary contribution of the book is its insightful concept of “gray divorce penalty.” Crowley finds that women experience a greater economic penalty and men suffer a higher social penalty after a gray divorce. Because of women’s sporadic paid work history, care work responsibilities, and longer life expectancy, they tend to have fewer income streams and face higher health care costs after splitting up. Women report significantly more worries about their financial security and tend to use reactive strategies to manage money, such as reducing spending, relying on family members, and continuing to work. Crowley takes complex financial information about retirement and social security and presents a clear discussion of the economic consequences of divorce for women, gathering compelling data about interviewees’ financial hardships.
By contrast, most men in this study express few worries about their financial futures. However, men more often reported losing friends, adult children, and other family members to their ex-wives. Compared to women, midlife men tended to have smaller social networks based on shared activities rather than deep emotional intimacy. They had also relied on wives as confidants and nurturers of kin and nonkin ties, making it difficult to maintain social networks and forge new ties after a gray divorce.
Gray Divorce is well organized and easy to read. Chapter one introduces background and the phenomenon of gray divorce, along with the research questions and methods of the study. Chapter two explores why older couples decide to split. Crowley finds that despite slight differences in men and women’s ranking of reasons for their divorces, they speak similarly about these reasons compared to their younger counterparts, including growing apart, cheating, abuse, and a spouse’s addiction and mental health problems. Chapters three and four examine the consequences of gray divorce: a higher economic penalty for women and a higher social penalty for men. Chapter five shows the personal gains and losses of a gray divorce. Both women and men speak about the loneliness, isolation, guilt, money concerns, health issues, and loss of intimacy, but also celebrate the freedom, independence, sense of control, and personal rebirth after divorce.
Chapter six outlines a range of potential policy solutions to alleviate gray divorce penalties. The author’s comprehensive suggestions serve as another major contribution of the book. Crowley’s concrete ideas, including overhauling existing Social Security policy to include caregiver credits, improving legal education to increase awareness of women’s economic vulnerabilities in divorce proceedings, and bolstering support groups for divorced men, provide a realizable action plan to reduce men and women’s economic and social pain following midlife divorce.
The book incisively reveals the gendered differences in gray divorce outcomes, making readers curious about the impact of other intersectional forces. For example, do working-class and racial/ ethnic minority women suffer more financial insecurity or do they have higher levels of resilience, given more continuous work histories and skills cultivated from a lifetime of disadvantage? How do race, ethnicity, sexuality, immigration status, and other factors affect the chances and experiences of men and women undergoing gray divorce? Crowley acknowledges the limitations of her mostly white, middle- and upper-middle-class interview sample and briefly touches on these lingering questions. Future studies can explore these intersectional themes on the solid foundation of this book.
Overall, Gray Divorce is an engaging read for anyone concerned about this recent phenomenon. It is also suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses on gender, family, aging and life course, social work, public policy, and legal studies.