Having It All · Episode 6 of 10 · 22 min
Coming Apart: No-Fault Divorce and the Gray Divorce Revolution
California signed the nation's first no-fault divorce law in 1969, and the divorce rate peaked around 1980 as Boomers reached marrying age. Then this generation kept divorcing into old age, a first: the divorce rate for Americans over 50 doubled between 1990 and 2010. Women initiate about two-thirds of these divorces and absorb most of the financial damage.
Who's who
- Ronald Reagan+11 more episodesCalifornia governor who signed the 1969 no-fault divorce law
- Susan L. Brown+1 more episodeSociologist who documented the gray divorce revolution
- I-Fen Lin+1 more episodeSociologist who traced the financial fallout of late-life divorce
- Lenore WeitzmanSociologist whose 1985 book reported a 73 percent drop in women's living standards
- Richard PetersonSociologist whose 1996 reanalysis found the drop was about 27 percent
- Tish SommersCoined 'displaced homemaker' and co-founded the Older Women's League
- Laurie ShieldsOrganizer who co-founded the Older Women's League in 1980
Where it happens
- California+30 more episodesFirst state with a no-fault divorce law
- Oakland, California+2 more episodesSite of the first displaced-homemaker center
Timeline
- September 1969Reagan signs California's Family Law Act, the first no-fault law
- 1980Sommers and Shields found the Older Women's League
- 1979-1981U.S. divorce rate peaks
- 1985Weitzman publishes The Divorce Revolution with the 73 percent figure
- May 1996Peterson's reanalysis appears; Weitzman concedes the error
- 2012Brown and Lin publish 'The Gray Divorce Revolution'
Still debated
Weitzman's 73 percent figure was wrong, though the corrected drop of about 27 percent still shows serious harm to women. The claim that half of marriages end in divorce is also disputed, since the defensible basis is cohort projection.
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