The economic legacy of divorce and separation for women in old age.

ABSTRACT

Although progress has been made over the last 20 years, the burden of a low income in old age is still carried by unattached women. Few researchers, however, have examined exactly where the burden of poverty falls within the category of unattached older women or what the nature of this poverty is. Like any other group of older Canadians, unattached women are not a homogeneous population. The category of unattached includes the separated, divorced, widowed, and ever single, all of whom face different circumstances in old age because of differences over the life course. Using Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) data, we examine income and sources of income from 1993 to 1999 to identify differences among these groups. The findings indicate that the separated and divorced are the poorest of all older unattached women in Canada. A key source of the difference is the differential growth in private pension incomes.