Divorce Trends

From Dubuque Telegraph Herald:

If you're past 50, it's critically important to pay attention to how your retirement savings weathers the storm. Divorce filings tend to surge at the beginning of the year, experts say, whether from pent-up demand after the holidays or to avoid having to endure another loveless Valentine's Day.

Parents with kids in school tend to hold out until the end of a school year, but when it comes to couples in middle age and beyond -- the so-called gray divorce -- the beginning of the year is often clean-slate time, said Tracy Stewart, a certified divorce financial analyst, accountant and financial planner in College Station, Texas.

The overall numbers are getting big. Divorce rates among 50-plus couples roughly doubled between 1990 and 2013, and 30 percent of divorced women 62 and older who are single live at or below the federal poverty line, said Susan Brown, a Bowling Green State University professor who has chronicled gray divorce trends.

Read more here.

MR