Video now available: 'Why do older people fall in love' with Anna Rotkirch

CPC welcomed Dr Anna Rotkirch on 23 November 2018, who gave a seminar on why older people fall in love.

Anna Rotkirch is Research Professor and Director of Research at the Population Research Institute, Väestöliitto, Finland. She received her PhD from the University of Helsinki. Her research interests focus on family sociology, childbearing, parenting, grandparenting, siblings, friendship, "baby fever" and evolutionary theory.

In her seminar, Anna examined why older people fall in love, or out of love. She questioned why so many women aged 50+ and with a new partner prefer not to marry. How does remarriage affect women’s and men’s relations to grandchildren? Pressing questions, yet there is a lack of both empirical data and theoretical understanding about “gray” couple relations.

Her talk presented the rationale and first results of new research on partnership dynamics in old age in Europe, using data from the UN marital database and the longitudinal study Generational Transmissions in Finland. Rates of divorce, remarriage, cohabitation and dating are rising among the elderly as the second demographic transition is now reshaping old age. This poses interesting new questions about the functions, benefits and costs of post-reproductive pair bonds, both to the individual and to family relations.

A recording of the seminar is available on the CPC YouTube channel:

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Posted 22/01/2019 11:27