Innovative 'gray divorce' research from BGSU professors draws national interest

Research from BGSU sociology professors Dr. Susan L. Brown and Dr. I-Fen Lin enters news cycles due to its wide appeal

Compelling research from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University earned coast-to-coast interest, drawing media coverage far and wide in recent months.

Outlets ranging from ABC News and the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal and Women’s Health have covered BGSU distinguished sociology professor Dr. Susan L. Brown and sociology professor I-Fen Lin’s work into “gray divorce,” the term they coined to describe marriages that end after age 50.

Brown’s most recent research, published in late 2024 with graduate student Jaden Loo, found that the share of currently divorced adults aged 65 or older has tripled since 1990 – contrary to popular perception and against the grain for divorce rates overall, which have decreased by nearly one-third since 1980.

The growth in divorced older adults aligns with Brown and Lin’s recent study showing that nearly 10% of all people divorcing in the U.S. are aged 65 or older.

“I think the findings from our line of research have been quite surprising because they contextualize the larger framing of divorce,” Brown said. “It’s a counter-intuitive, unexpected finding. We were really surprised that’s what we found, and I think it’s jumpstarted the line of inquiry for gerontologists and family scholars.

“Certainly, it’s reshaping the aging experience of Baby Boomers, which I think is why it’s drawn interest from news media.”

The NCFMR, founded in 2007 by Brown and distinguished BGSU professor Dr. Wendy D. Manning, has become a leader in the field by providing relevant research into the human condition that often informs policy decisions far and wide.

Ironically, the line of scholarly inquiry into gray divorce began after Brown and Lin saw a news story 15 years ago.

When former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, divorced in 2010 after 40 years of marriage, Brown recalls discussing with Lin what felt like an oddity.

What compelled a couple to separate that late in life after so many years together?

After researching the topic, Brown said she and Lin were floored – it was not only a common occurrence, it had not been studied despite data showing its clear increase.

“We were thinking about marital quality for older adults and asking whether this was a phenomenon or just an interesting one-off in the news cycle,” Brown said. “We were able to use the Census data to examine the divorce rate for older adults, which had not really been studied. We were stunned to find the rate had doubled between 1990 and 2010, which was not at all what we expected.”

Since then, the pair have published more than 15 articles on the topic with support from three grant awards from the National Institute on Aging.

The research topic has not only drawn interest from national audiences, but also provided tangible evidence of a relevant trend about marriage in the United States.

"It’s incredibly rewarding to see our study on gray divorce garners such significant scholarly and media attention," Lin said. "This underscores that the gray divorce phenomenon is not an anomaly, but rather a manifestation of deeper, enduring societal shifts."

Brown and Lin’s recent published work addressed the antecedents of the rise of gray divorce.

The research identified several contributing factors, including remarriages being more likely to end in divorce, an increase in financial autonomy for women and life expectancy decreasing widowhood by more than 10%.

Increases in lifespan have proven to be a key factor in the overall findings.

“It’s part of what has changed the calculus about getting divorced: people are living longer,” Brown said. “The thing I always say is that if you’re 65, you could reasonably expect to live another 20 years, and 20 years is a long time to spend with someone you’re just not into anymore.”

Gray divorce has become a popular and relevant topic for Brown, which she said she did not expect earlier in her career.

In finding research that has proved interesting to the general public, however, she said she discovered a lesson that she now shares with BGSU students as they seek to find their own areas of research that better understand how family structures are connected to health.

“It totally upended my scholarly research agenda,” she said. “I use this as an example to graduate students in our program because we often think of research as this very predictable and consistent process. Really, there are a lot of unexpected detours and pathways that you can’t foresee, and those are often the most interesting.”