On June 6, 2012, Sally Abrahms writes in the AARP Bulletin that more boomers are calling it quits after years of marriage, What does this mean for their economic security and our society?
“Boomers love to do everything their own way, and they are out in front on divorce, too. While the overall divorce rate in the United States has decreased since 1990, it has doubled for those over age 50.
“Reasons vary: Longer lives mean more years with an incompatible spouse; no kids to use as a reason to stay together; less stigma about splitting; more women working, some outearning their spouses; and a remarriage failure rate of 60 percent.
“The surge has spawned the term ‘gray divorce.’ As Jay Lebow, a psychologist at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, says, ‘If late-life divorce were a disease, it would be an epidemic.’
“One out of three boomers will face older age unmarried, says Susan Brown, codirector of the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University in her new study ‘The Gray Divorce Revolution.’
“That’s significant. The fact that onetime legally bound partners have gone their separate ways later in life — or are single by choice or circumstances — has many personal and societal ramifications.”
Social Security’s so-called “safety net” may not be sufficient to provide the economic security that seniors need, leaving many, if not a majority of seniors, vulnerable financially. As discussed in my post on Security Security (see http://foreconomicjustice.com/2467/10-ways-to-tune-up-social-security/), the various options to provide some level of economic security have their pros and cons, Society Security is based on “job employment,” and no one is addressing the needed solutions to providing economic security long-term as we deal with the impact of the tectonic shifts in the technologies of production, which represents a future Third Industrial Revolution. As this scarnio advances, fewer and fewer people will be needed to fill job opportunities. Private sector job creation in numbers that match the pool of people willing and able to work is constantly being eroded by physical productive capital’s (the non-human factor of production) ever increasing role.
