“Til Retirement do us Part”? The Divorce Risk of Seniors in France

Giulia Ferrari , INED
Anne Solaz, INED
Charlotte Savatier, Insee

The rate of divorces occurring at older ages—so-called gray divorces—has been rising steadily in Western countries. This paper explores whether the transition to retirement may constitute a disruptive event for couple stability and contribute to this trend. Using the French Permanent Demographic Sample (EDP), an administrative panel covering 4% of the population between 2010 and 2020, we follow nearly 440,000 couples aged 50–75. A Cox survival model with time-varying covariates is estimated to assess how the transition to retirement of both partners affects the risk of separation, controlling for income variation, education, union type, and other socio-demographic factors. Results show that, despite the general decline of separations with age and union duration, the retirement transition temporarily increases the risk of union dissolution. The hazard of separation rises by roughly 28% for men and 9% for women in the year of retirement before returning to pre-retirement levels some years later. Both income losses and income gains above 10% also raise separation risk, suggesting that upward or downward economic shocks can destabilize couples. The effect is strongest when only one partner retires, particularly when the woman retires first. These findings support the view that retirement constitutes a short-lived but significant turning point in late-life conjugal trajectories. Our future work will firstly investigate the role of retirement synchrony, distinguishing couples who retire in the same year from those who retire sequentially, and secondly, provide a way to correct for possible endogeneity of the retirement timing.

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 Presented in Session 42. Flash Session Work, Family Roles and Social Participation in Later Life