How does an older spouse's limited remaining working years affect the support calculation?

Age is a significant factor in both entitlement and duration. If the recipient spouse is in their late 50s or older at the time of separation, courts recognize that the practical ability to return to the workforce and build financial self-sufficiency may be genuinely limited. This weighs toward longer or indefinite support.

The Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines can produce time-limited durations that would require an older recipient to be self-sufficient within a few years — but courts can and do depart from those time limits when self-sufficiency is not realistic. A 60-year-old who left the workforce for 20 years to raise children faces different prospects than a 38-year-old with recent professional experience.

For older recipients, courts also look at pension entitlements, RRSP balances, CPP credits, and access to other retirement income as part of the full financial picture. The goal is not to produce indefinite support in every case involving an older spouse, but to ensure that the support period is long enough to bridge the gap to retirement security or to last until other retirement income sources become available. Age combined with a long marriage and career sacrifice is one of the strongest combinations for indefinite support.