(Re)partnering in Later Life Among Parents: The Significance of Offspring Characteristics

• In Event: Aging and the Life Course Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 5: Marital Formation and Dissolution

Abstract

Due to changing family trends in the second half of the life course, a growing proportion of older adults are at risk of forming new unions in later life. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of older adults have children, with growing heterogeneity in the configurations of children and parent-child relationships. Yet little is known about how variations in children’s residential status, proximity, age composition, and grandparenthood status shape older single parents’ (re)partnering in later life. Using longitudinal data from the 1998-2022 Health and Retirement Study, I examine how offspring characteristics and parent-child relationships promote, or discourage, union formation among single older adults. I will employ discrete-time event history models using multinomial regression to estimate the odds of (re)partnering in older adulthood, through either cohabitation or (re)marriage (N = 15,243). Preliminary descriptive results show that about 13% of single older adults eventually repartner. By distinguishing among offspring configurations and the strength of intergenerational ties, this study advances understanding of how family complexity and intergenerational relationships shape (re)partnering trajectories in later life.

Author

• Gabrielle Juteau, Bowling Green State University