The increase in break-ups and re-couplings among those aged fifty and over.

Summary Among individuals born in the 1930s, only 4% of men and 5% of women had lived in a couple more than once by age 50. The vast majority had only one co-resident union in their lifetime, most often married. Among the generations born thirty years later, in the 1960s, a quarter of men and women aged 50 have already experienced at least two unions. Men are more likely than women to re-form a couple at all ages. These gender differences increase with age: men are a quarter more likely than women to remarry at age 50 and three times more likely at age 73. Divorces of seniors are on the rise.