Divorce with lasting effects: divorced people often lack support in old age

How does a separation or divorce from many years ago affect people in old age? Sociologist Juan López Doblas and social psychologist María del Pilar Díaz Conde of the University of Granada set out to answer that question. They interviewed older people who separated or divorced long ago and now live alone. According to the university, it is the first study of its kind in Spain; it appeared in the journal Revista Internacional de Sociología and the university presented it on 20 October. It is based on in-depth interviews analysed from a life-course and gender perspective.

According to the findings, a significant share of participants receive too little support from their families and have unmet needs for practical help in daily life. Among men, relationships with their children often cooled or broke off after the separation – leaving them without help when illness or dependency strikes. The researchers suggest that many men were unable to separate their roles as husband and father. Women usually kept in touch with their families but more often bear financial consequences: many raised their children alone and had precarious careers, which limits their access to professional care.

Many participants, especially men, showed signs of low mood and loneliness but often hid them. Some have no one to confide a problem to, or simply to talk to, the authors write. They call for more social and institutional attention to this group. Limitation: this is a qualitative interview study; the releases do not say how many people were interviewed, and it cannot show how common such trajectories are overall.