Using data from the HRS, Amelia Karraker and Kenzie Latham find that gender plays a large role in whether or not illness in later life results in divorce. Women age 50+ are much more vulnerable to marriage loss through illness, says Karraker, because they are more likely than 50+ year-old men to face widowhood and, if they become ill, their marriages are more likely to end in divorce. Karraker speculates that the reason for the latter is that “gender norms and social expectations about caregiving may make it more difficult for men to provide care to ill spouses. And because of the imbalance in marriage markets, especially in older ages, divorced men have more choices among prospective partners than divorced women.”

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