Family Relationships, Mental, and Physical Health Outcomes after Late Life Divorce

Abstract

Although the divorce rate in the United States has remained fairly stable since 1980, the divorce rate for couples over age 50 has more than doubled in the past decade. The current study aims to better understand families experiencing a late life divorce and has three main goals: 1) investigate the differences in parent/offspring relationship quality in parent/offspring dyads that have experienced a late life divorce and those from married families; 2) compare the mental and physical health outcomes of parent/offspring dyads who experience late life divorce and those from married families and; 3) explore whether parent/offspring sex combination (i.e. mother/son, father/daughter, mother/daughter, father/son) serves as a moderator in the relationship between parental marital status and relationship quality, mental health outcomes, and physical health outcomes. There were no significant differences between late life divorced families and married families in parent/offspring relationship quality. Further, linguistic ambivalence was negatively correlated with the quantitative measure of ambivalence. I found no support for the main study hypotheses in that parent/offspring dyad sex combination acts as a moderator between parental marital status and parent/offspring relationship quality or measures of mental and physical health; however, there were differences among married and late life divorced families in that those who have experienced a late life divorce reported higher levels of depression, stress, and anxiety. Families who experience a late life divorce struggle with similar mental health outcomes as families who experience a divorce earlier in life. It is important to better understand these families to develop and test interventions to be the most effective for divorce in later life.