Over the last three decades, the country has seen a rise in “grey divorce” when couples aged 50 years and older split up, according to StatCan, although the divorce rates in that age group have stabilized more recently, dipping in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The breakdown of a marriage is never easy, but divorce at an older age beyond 50 has its unique set of challenges, experts say.
There seems to be less of a stigma around divorce and older couples are more willing to end their marriage if they are not happy with it, said Kevin Caspersz, a family lawyer in Vaughan, Ont. and managing partner at Caspersz Chegini LLP.
Caspersz told Global News that in the past 10 years, he has seen an increase in “grey divorce”, particularly with individuals 65 or older seeking to end their marriages.
“It’s definitely more prevalent over the years,” he said. “They (senior couples) look at it as they only have so much more time left to enjoy life and if they’re not happy in their relationship, the children have left the home. (There’s an) empty nest, they see no reason in continuing the marriage.”
Why are ‘grey divorces’ happening?
Rachel Margolis, a professor in the sociology department at the University of Western Ontario, said there are multiple factors that can contribute to a “grey divorce.”
One of them is that baby boomers, who are aged 60 to 78, have gone through different social changes during their lives.
“A lot of these people who are now older adults in Canada, they married young, they (may have) got divorced in their 20s, and we know that people who have already been divorced are more likely to divorce again,” Margolis said.
Baby boomers also have more wealth than any other generation in history, so they can afford to live in separate households, she added.
In addition, there is a significant number of unmarried older people than ever before, meaning there are more people out there to re-partner with after divorce, Margolis said.
“The baby boomers know that the stigma against divorce has really declined a lot over time,” she added. “So maybe in the past, a couple would have decided to stay together, but all of these things make it easier if people do want to get divorced.”
Financial concerns
While there are fewer parental responsibilities to worry about at an older age since the children are grown up and most likely independent, a “grey divorce” can still be a financial burden on both parties.
The concern is that the couples in a “grey divorce” don’t have many years of work left as a younger couple would and therefore have less time to rebuild lost assets, experts say. Meanwhile, the high cost of living and economic uncertainty has been weighing heavy on Canadians across the country, impacting the retirement plans for many.
A report by the Toronto Metropolitan University’s National Institute on Ageing (NIA) published last week showed that one in four Canadians aged 50 and older say that their income is not enough for them. Only about a third (35 per cent) in that age group said they could afford to retire when they wish to, the report said.
A Deloitte Canada analysis published a week before that also showed that 55 per cent of Canadians aged between 55 and 64 years will have to make changes to their lifestyles to avoid outliving their savings.
“If they are leaving that relationship with some sort of financial instability or let’s say, even some sort of support obligations, then that can be a real concern,” Caspersz said.
“And some might even have to consider putting off their retirement in order to satisfy the obligations resulting from the divorce and separation,” he added. “So, the lifestyle they perhaps were expecting to have in retirement is now in jeopardy or looks very different.”
Data suggests that the financial impact of a grey divorce tends to be greater on women than men.
A Statistics Canada study published last year showed that at ages 54 to 56, the income losses of divorced women were higher compared to single, married and widowed women. The study used tax data up from 1982 to 2020.
“Divorce also had a negative financial impact on men, but they were more likely, on average, to have higher incomes than women at ages 70 to 80,” the StatCan study said.
Margolis said even though women are more likely than men to initiate a divorce in the first place, when couples split up, men generally end up with more wealth and income than women on average.
In the current housing market, with prices through the roof and high interest rates, finding another home can also be a challenge when couples split up.
“Because the housing prices have increased so much in Canada, it’s just harder for people who are getting divorced now than in the past to find adequate housing,” Margolis said. “So, what we sometimes see is that people and especially women are pulling resources together and might live with friends or might live with family members.”
Having a prenuptial agreement or a marriage contract in place can be helpful to separate any assets the couple have accumulated over time, Caspersz said.
Mental toll of ‘grey divorce’
The emotional toll of a long marriage ending is also likely to hit women harder, some research suggests.
A study using data from Finland published Tuesday in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health showed an accelerated increase in the use of antidepressants in both men and women aged 50 to 70 years immediately before divorce, but women in that age group had greater increases, the study found. Although the use of antidepressants declined at the time of re-partnering, this reduction was small and short-lived, and was not observed in female divorcees, the authors concluded.
“The smaller declines in antidepressant use associated with re-partnering in women than in men may be related to the explanations that marriage benefits men’s mental health to a greater extent than women’s, and older men are more likely than women to seek (new partners),” the study authors said.
“In addition, women may take greater responsibilities to manage interpersonal relationships (within) blended families, such as those with the (new) partner’s children, which could undermine their mental health.”
Adult children and grandchildren can play a supporting role here and help the divorced couple adjust to their new life, experts say.
“I think that all children can try to be accommodating to their parents and realize that their parents are choosing what they want for themselves and try and be supportive of that even if it makes life more complicated,” Margolis said.
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
