While the share of women living with a spouse has increased for both age groups, the share doing so among women ages 85 and older nearly doubled in recent decades. In 2014, 12% lived with their spouse – up from 7% in 1990. Despite this, the share of women ages 85 and older living with a spouse is substantially smaller than that of any other age and gender group.
The overall decline in men living with their spouse is driven by men ages 65 to 84. Roughly seven-in-ten men in this age group (69%) lived with a spouse in 2014 – down from 75% in 1990. Men ages 65 to 84 are more likely than in 1990 to be divorced and slightly more likely to never have been married. (See appendix table for more details on marital status by age and gender.) Conversely, men ages 85 and older are more likely to live with their spouse (and be married) in 2014 than in the prior decades. Among men ages 85 and older, about half (49%) lived with a spouse in 2014, compared with 44% in 1990. While there are growing shares of men ages 85 and older who are divorced, this share has risen less sharply than that of men ages 65 to 84.
Women ages 85 and older were considerably more likely to live with their children in 2014 than in the previous two decades. Roughly a quarter (23%) of women ages 85 and older were unmarried and lived with their children in 2014, compared with 16% in 1990. A considerably smaller share of men in this age range (10%) were unmarried and living with their children in 2014. This was a slight increase from 9% in 1990.
- Multi-generational households include households with: a parent and adult child ages 25 and older; three or more generations, or skipped generations such as grandparents and grandchildren, without parents. ↩
- This figure comes from a U.S. Census Bureau analysis using the Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement. Individuals in institutions, such as nursing homes, are not included in the Current Population Survey. ↩
- West, Cole, Goodkind, and He, 2014 ↩
3. Well-being of older adults living alone
Older adults’ living arrangements are linked to their assessments of their financial comfort, social lives and relationships, and lifestyle, according to an analysis of Pew Research Center survey findings. In general, older men who live alone are less likely to be satisfied with their social lives than men who live with others or women in any living arrangement. And men who live alone are less likely than women to say they experience some key benefits of aging, such as spending more time on hobbies.
Older adults living alone are less upbeat about their personal financial situation
Older adults living alone are less likely to describe their financial situation favorably than those living with others. One-third (33%) of older adults living alone say they live comfortably, compared with about half (49%) of those who live with others. 12Roughly a quarter of each group say they have enough to meet their basic expenses with a little left over for extras.
Another quarter of older adults living alone say they have enough to just meet their basic expenses. Among older adults who live with others, slightly fewer (16%) describe their financial situation this way.
Older adults living alone are roughly twice as likely as those who live with others to say they don’t even have enough to meet basic expenses (12% vs. 5%).
These survey findings are in line with census data indicating that older Americans who live alone are about three times as likely as those who live with others to be poor. In 2014, about one-in-five (18%) older adults living alone were in poverty, amounting to 2.2 million older adults. 13 By contrast, 6% of older adults living with others in 2014 were in poverty.
This is especially true of women: 19% of older women who lived alone were in poverty in 2014, versus 15% of comparable men. Among older Americans who lived alone, 1.6 million women lived in poverty compared with 600,000 men. However, older women in any living arrangement are more likely to be impoverished than older men.
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