Middle Adulthood: Generativity, Love, and Family

This is Unit Fourteen, part two, on divorce, households, caring across generations, and well-being at midlife. Part one closed on what predicts marital satisfaction. Part two opens with divorce, then follows midlife families through households, caregiving and the question of happiness. Carry one question through this part: are the expected lows of midlife real? Divorce, living alone, the empty nest and a midlife dip in happiness each come with a gloomy story. At the entry that asks whether there is a midlife dip, the part's answer is that the evidence is mixed. By the end you will be able to describe divorce trends, including gray divorce. To tell living alone from loneliness. To define the sandwich generation and caregiver burden. To state what research finds about the empty nest. And to tell happiness from life satisfaction.

Five entries on divorce at midlife and on what comes after it.

Divorce trends.

HGD 1969 Divorce Trends

The US divorce rate peaked in nineteen seventy-nine at about twenty-three per thousand married women and fell to about fourteen by twenty twenty. No-fault divorce, introduced in the nineteen seventies, raised rates, while religiosity lowers divorce risk. The misconception is that divorce keeps rising; rates have fallen for decades, though they remain higher among lower-income and less-educated adults.

Gray divorce.

HGD 1970 Gray Divorce

Gray divorce, divorce after fifty, has doubled since nineteen ninety, attributed to expectations of personal happiness in marriage, longer lives and no-fault laws. Men after fifty cite growing apart and infidelity; women cite infidelity, a spouse's substance use and emotional abuse. Overall divorce falls while divorce after fifty rises: two trends, not a contradiction.

Adversarial divorce, and mediation.

HGD 1971 Adversarial Divorce and Mediation

Adversarial divorce raises conflict, cost and harm to children, while mediation and divorce counselling cost less, keep reconciliation possible and support co-parenting, as when divorcing parents work out a schedule with a mediator rather than in court. First marriages that end in divorce last about eight years, according to the Census Bureau.

Life after divorce.

HGD 1972 Life After Divorce

After gray divorce, women's standard of living falls about forty-five percent against about twenty-one percent for men, while men show larger early drops in life satisfaction. Most people recover over time, and some women grow more sociable and positive after divorce. Leaving an abusive marriage often takes several attempts, and post-traumatic symptoms usually decline over two to three years.

Dating and remarriage at midlife.

HGD 1973 Dating and Remarriage at Midlife

Midlife daters face smaller pools and more online dating; men emphasize youth, looks and emotional support, women intelligence, honesty and companionship. Almost a quarter of married couples include a previously married partner, often with children from earlier marriages, and remarriages face blended-family and financial complexity that first marriages usually do not.

Eight entries on the households of midlife, and on two models of how family and friends hold together.

Households at midlife.

HGD 1974 Households at Midlife

Midlife households vary widely: single adults, multigenerational homes, blended families, same-sex parents and empty nests, and most adults are neutral or positive about the variety. One street may hold an empty-nest couple, a grandmother raising a grandson and a man living alone. Household form tells little on its own about well-being.

Living alone.

HGD 1975 Living Alone

Living alone is common in midlife and more common in prosperous nations, but living alone is not the same as loneliness, especially when chosen; living alone after separation, divorce or widowhood goes with more depression than living alone by choice. The US Surgeon General has framed social connection as a public health priority.

A family of choice.

HGD 1976 Family of Choice

A family of choice is a kin-like network not based on blood or marriage, complementing a family of origin. Former foster youth, immigrants, LGBTQ+ adults and never-married adults build close networks of chosen family, which provide the support families of origin provide others, and many people have both.

Single-parent and multigenerational homes.

HGD 1977 Single-Parent and Multigenerational Homes

About four in five single-parent households are headed by women, and multigenerational homes, including skipped-generation households, have nearly doubled in fifty years, like a grandmother, her adult son and his teenage daughter sharing one house. Multigenerational living is commoner among Asian, Hispanic and Black Americans, and most residents find it rewarding.

Blended families.

HGD 1978 Blended Families

Blended-family outcomes vary with children's ages, stepparent investment, couple satisfaction and time since divorce, and Papernow describes five challenges: insider and outsider positions, children's losses, parenting disagreements, building a new family culture, and integrating former spouses. Time and normalizing the challenges ease them, in Papernow's account.

LGBTQ+ families.

HGD 1979 LGBTQ+ Families

About fifteen percent of same-sex couples have children, and same-sex couples adopt and foster more than different-sex couples. Same-sex parents face more stress from barriers and discrimination, buffered by supportive communities. The misconception is that their children fare worse; they do not differ in health or adjustment.

Family systems theory.

HGD 1980 Family Systems Theory

Family systems theory treats family relationships as interdependent parts of a whole, so a change in one member's role ripples through everyone else's. Spillover, a bad day at work carrying into a tense evening, is the better-supported of two work–family models, and a spouse's emotional support protects most against depression.

The convoy model.

HGD 1981 The Convoy Model

The convoy model, from Kahn and Antonucci, describes the stable network of close people who travel with us through adulthood, held together by exchanges of support, like a fifty-year-old whose closest friends from her twenties still call every week. Strong social networks predict better health and lower mortality.

Six entries on caring across generations, from aging parents to grandchildren.

The sandwich generation.

HGD 1982 The Sandwich Generation

The sandwich generation, Dorothy Miller's term, describes midlife adults with at least one parent aged sixty-five or older who are also raising children or supporting grown ones; in a twenty twenty-one Pew survey, about a quarter of US adults fit it. A forty-eight-year-old drives her mother to dialysis in the morning and her son to practice in the evening, with a job in between. Multiple roles can bring enhancement or strain, and caring for both generations brings more strain than caring for parents alone. Caregiver burden, the combined psychological, social and financial cost of unpaid family care, is lighter for caregivers who feel prepared and supported, and women provide more unpaid care.

Caregiving, and leave from work.

HGD 1983 Caregiver Burden and Leave

The Family and Medical Leave Act provides eligible workers up to twelve weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave a year for family and medical reasons, like a son taking unpaid leave to care for his father after surgery, his job held for his return. The leave is unpaid; the course describes the law and takes no position on it.

Launching, and boomerang children.

HGD 1984 Launching and Boomerang Children

Launching is children's move from dependence to independence, as parents shift from director to encourager; boomerang children return home after living independently, like a twenty-six-year-old moving back to pay down student debt. Families of collectivistic heritage often expect later departure, and co-residence can lower parents' quality of life in some settings.

The empty nest.

HGD 1985 The Empty Nest

The empty nest, the period after children leave home, is a normative event, and many studies support a role-strain relief view over a role-loss view, as parents rediscover time together, privacy and shared leisure. The misconception is that the empty nest makes parents depressed; marital satisfaction typically rises during the launching years and after.

Grandparenthood.

HGD 1986 Grandparenthood

The average adult may spend about thirty years as a grandparent, and most grandparents live within an hour of their grandchildren and see their help as necessary; involved grandparents' adolescent grandchildren show more kindness and academic engagement. Grandparents may adopt different styles with different grandchildren, and change styles as circumstances change.

Custodial grandparents.

HGD 1987 Custodial Grandparents

Custodial grandparents, raising grandchildren without the parents present, show poorer physical and emotional well-being, isolation, and sometimes shame or guilt about the circumstances, as with a sixty-year-old raising two grandchildren after their parents' addiction. Social support, resilience and resourcefulness protect their well-being.

Seven entries to close the unit, on well-being at midlife. The opening question is answered here.

Abilities that peak at midlife.

HGD 1988 Peak Social Cognition

Some abilities peak in midlife rather than youth: sustained attention, and face learning, which improves after thirty, like a forty-year-old teacher who remembers every new student's face by the second day. Midlife is a peak for some abilities and a decline for others, not a uniform downhill slide.

Two sides of well-being.

HGD 1989 Subjective Well-Being

Subjective well-being has two sides. Happiness is the affective side, how good one feels, and can be measured by a single question; finances, social support and extraversion predict it. Life satisfaction is a global, multidimensional appraisal of one's life, measured by instruments such as the Satisfaction With Life Scale, validated across cultures. The two can diverge: a fifty-year-old who feels stressed most days may still rate her life as a whole highly. Correlates shift with age, and younger adults overestimate their future happiness while older adults tend to underestimate it.

Culture, hope, and control.

HGD 1990 Culture, Hope and Control

In individualistic cultures life satisfaction tracks self-esteem and achievement; in collectivistic cultures it tracks family well-being and others' regard, a classic cross-cultural finding. Adults in China who felt more control over their lives kept higher well-being during strict pandemic restrictions, and hope, optimism and perceived control support life satisfaction across many cultures.

The payoff: is there a midlife dip?

HGD 1991 Is There a Midlife Dip?

Some cross-sectional studies suggest happiness follows a U shape, lowest in midlife, but a review by Galambos and colleagues argues the evidence is mixed, and that answers this part's question. Cross-sectional curves cannot show within-person change, and longitudinal findings on the U shape are mixed. Older adults, asked to look back, recall midlife as one of the more positive periods of their lives.

Does parenthood bring happiness?

HGD 1992 Does Parenthood Bring Happiness?

Parents' overall life evaluation does not differ significantly from non-parents' once education and income are controlled, but parents report more highs and lows, and fathers report more happiness than mothers, perhaps reflecting unequal care. The misconception is that children make parents happier, or unhappier; it depends on choice, age, marital status, income, support and child temperament.

Happiness from meaning.

HGD 1993 Eudaimonic Happiness

Eudaimonic happiness comes from purpose and meaning, from rewarding rather than fun activities, such as hard work that helps others or caring for a child; in a longitudinal study, higher mental well-being at forty-two predicted generativity at fifty. Generativity balances others' needs with one's own, and aging well involves control over some valued parts of life.

Ryff's model of well-being.

HGD 1994 Ryff's Psychological Well-Being

Carol Ryff's model of psychological well-being has six dimensions: self-acceptance, positive relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth; a midlife adult may be high in purpose and growth but lower in mastery during a hectic caregiving year. Life satisfaction is fairly stable across adulthood because priorities adapt to circumstances.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe divorce trends: falling overall since nineteen seventy-nine, while divorce after fifty has doubled. You can tell living alone from loneliness, and define a family of choice. You can define the sandwich generation, caring for aging parents and children at once, and caregiver burden, lighter for those who feel prepared and supported. You can state the empty-nest finding: relief from role strain more than loss, with marital satisfaction typically rising. And you can tell happiness, how one feels, from life satisfaction, how one judges one's life, and say that the evidence for a midlife dip is mixed. Unit Fifteen turns to late adulthood.