For years, 51-year-old Dawn and her husband of two decades, Tim, had buried their differences over finances, child-rearing and religion. But when the last of the Wisconsin couple's three daughters was finishing high school in 2009, those differences were all that Dawn could see. 'I had gone back to school to advance my career as a paralegal, and his work had dwindled, so he was just basically hanging out with his buddies,' she says. 'We had nothing to talk about, and when we did, it was bickering.'
现年51岁的道恩(Dawn)家住威斯康辛州，她和前夫蒂姆(Tim)结婚二十年，育有三个女儿。多年来，两人一直将他们之间在理财、子女教育和宗教等方面的种种分歧掩藏起来。然而，2009年，当他们最小的女儿也从高中毕业后，所有被遮掩起来的分歧突然在一夜之间都冒了出来。道恩说，"我是个律师助理，为了职业发展，我曾回学校进修过。而他的工作在走下坡路，因此他每天基本上只是和他那些朋友混在一起。我们无话可说，即便是说话，也都是在拌嘴吵架。"
They had stayed together all those years because of the kids, but now nothing was left. 'He was so uncompassionate, and I had turned to my religion, and he would never go to church with me,' she says. 'I realized that I was alone in the marriage and would be better off with someone whose values and interests were more like mine.' She seized the moment and left, filing for divorce.
这么多年来他们勉强在一起都是为了孩子，而今没有什么事情再值得牵挂了。她说，"他对我十分冷漠，我对于我所信奉的宗教十分虔诚，而他却从来不和我一起去教堂。我意识到，在这份婚姻里我是孤独一个人，如果和一个价值观和兴趣都同我更相近的人在一起，我会更幸福。"因此她提出了离婚，抓住这个时机抽身离开了。
For the new generation of empty-nesters, divorce is increasingly common. Among people ages 50 and older, the divorce rate has doubled over the past two decades, according to new research by sociologists Susan Brown and I-Fen Lin of Bowling Green State University, whose paper, 'The Gray Divorce Revolution,' Prof. Brown will present at Ohio State University this April. The paper draws on data from the 1990 U.S. Vital Statistics Report and the 2009 American Community Survey, administered by the U.S. Census Bureau, which asked all respondents if they'd divorced in the past 12 months.
在新一代的空巢家庭中，离婚现象正变得越来越普遍。根据博林格林州立大学(Bowling Green State University)的社会学家苏珊•布朗(Susan Brown)和林一芬(I-Fen Lin)的最新研究结果，过去20年间，在年龄达到或者超过50岁的人群中，离婚率增加了一倍。今年4月份布朗教授将在俄亥俄州立大学(Ohio State University)宣读她们这份题为《灰发者的离婚革命》(The Gray Divorce Revolution)的学术论文。论文中引用的数据来自美国人口普查局(U.S. Census Bureau)负责完成的两份调查报告：《1990年美国重要统计数据报告》(1990 U.S. Vital Statistics Report)和《2009年美国社区调查报告》(2009 American Community Survey)。美国人口普查局在调查中询问了所有接受调查者在过去12个月中是否离过婚。
Though overall national divorce rates have declined since spiking in the 1980s, 'gray divorce' has risen to its highest level on record, according to Prof. Brown. In 1990, only one in 10 people who got divorced was 50 or older; by 2009, the number was roughly one in four. More than 600,000 people ages 50 and older got divorced in 2009.
据布朗教授介绍，尽管整体离婚率在上世纪80年代达到峰值后有所下降，但"灰发人群的离婚率"却达到了历史最高水平。1990年，只有十分之一的离婚者到了知命之年，或者年逾50，至2009年，这个比例大致到了四分之一。2009年，有超过60万名年龄达到或者超过50岁的人离了婚。
What's more, a 2004 national survey conducted by AARP found that women are the ones initiating most of these breakups. Among divorces by people ages 40-69, women reported seeking the split 66% of the time. And cheating doesn't appear to be the driving force in gray divorce. The same AARP survey found that 27% of divorcés cited infidelity as one of their top three reasons for seeking a divorce
京公网安备 11011202003401号
