Some states have automatic revocation statutes—which means beneficiary designations to ex-spouses will automatically be revoked by a divorce—but those statutes don’t apply to ERISA plans.

A Wave Of Gray Divorce
A person getting married today has nearly a one-in-three chance of experiencing divorce, said Roberts. That number skews slightly higher for people age 50 and above.

“Age differences are also a factor,” she said. “Marriages with significant differences in age are at twice the risk for divorce” than those where both parties are close in age. College graduates and above-median earners are also less likely to divorce.

Multiple marriages are also a risk factor for divorce, said Roberts. Second marriages are approximately 250% as likely to end in divorce than first marriages, and third marriages are 73% more likely to end in divorce than first marriages.

Divorce risk factors don’t always coincide with conventional wisdom. Take smoking, for example. A marriage in which both parties are smokers is more than twice as likely to end in divorce than a marriage with one smoking and one non-smoking spouse, said Roberts.

Social media is also a risk factor—a 20% increase in Facebook usage correlates to a 2.3% increase in divorce rates, said Roberts. “Half of today’s divorces mention Facebook, and one-third of divorces mention online affairs.”

But age has increased in influence as a risk factor for divorce, and is the only age demographic in which the rate of divorce is increasing is among people over age 50. Roberts explained three reasons for the rise of “gray divorce.”

“One is previous marital history, because we know second and third marriages are more likely to end in divorce,” she said. “The second factor is longevity. It sounds harsh, but a generation ago if you were 50 or 60 years old and unhappily married, chances were that you would just wait it out. Divorce was not as accepted, and life expectancies were not as long. Today, at age 50, your reasonable life expectancy is another 30 years.”

A third reason is that society’s expectations around marriage have changed, said Roberts, and for the most part Americans do not consider divorce as “a personal failure or something shameful.”

The Impact Of Gray Divorce
Divorce rates for people over age 50 have doubled since 1990, said Roberts, and advisors should be aware of the psychological and physical impacts on their clients. For example, divorce is associated with weight gain and higher blood pressure over time, especially for men, and can lead to depression.

Men and women also experience declines in their standard of living due to divorce, but the impact is three times higher for women: A 45% decline in standard of living for women versus a 15% decline for men.