by Paula Span | The New York Times
David Plunkert
“Every few years, a group of federal agencies publishes a raft of data on every conceivable subject affecting older people. Housing. Employment. Leisure.
“The numbers that jumped out at me from the latest report, called Older Americans 2016, concerned a more intimate matter: gender differences in marital status. To be blunt, they’re enormous, with consequences beyond the purely personal.
“At every age, the report shows, older men are far more likely to be married than older women.
“About three-quarters of men ages 65 to 74 are married, compared with 58 percent of women in that age group. More surprisingly, the proportion of men who are married at 75 to 84 doesn’t decline; among women, it drops to 42 percent.
“Even among men over 85, nearly 60 percent are married. By that point, only 17 percent of women are.”
