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When men marry later, age gap is larger, researchers find, even if the guy is broke
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This Link is located in the Public Channel Sex, Love, Relationships, Marriage.
Posted by ian 196 days ago (www.mercurynews.com). Views: 296
Tags: marriage |
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From politicians like Dennis Kucinich and John McCain, to businessmen like Larry Ellison and Donald Trump, to entertainers like Woody Allen and Larry King, there's no shortage of rich, successful men marrying younger women.
The assets of fame, power and big bucks, the belief goes, tend to make up for the debits of time - gray hair, paunches and assorted wrinkles.
But, according to new Stanford University research, the "success" part may not have much to do with it, either. The older a man is when he marries after 40, the greater the likelihood that his bride will be significantly younger - whether that man is wealthy or not.
"The poor guys marry down (in age) just as much as the rich guys do," said Paula England, a Stanford sociologist and co-author of the new study. "That was kind of surprising to us."
Men in their 40s tend to marry women who average seven years younger, and men in their 50s are marrying brides who average 11 years younger, according to England's research. And men in the 60s? They marry women who are 13 years younger.
"In first marriages, men are typically a couple years older than women," England said. But, "the older men are when they marry, and it doesn't matter whether it's a first or a second marriage, the more years they marry down."
While the age differential is narrowing in first marriages, a significant portion of husbands are still substantially older than their wives.
In about one-third of American marriages, husbands are at least four years older than their wives, according to 2006 Census data. Wives are more than four years older in just 7 percent.
Still, in a first marriage, the median age difference is about 1.6 years between brides and grooms - much less than a generation ago.
That narrowing points to a overall trend toward more egalitarian marriages, argues Stephanie Coontz, author of "Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage."
"You're still getting a lot of guys who marry down" in age, Coontz said, "but I think that obscures a trend to more age-equal, more power-equal relationships."
What demographers call the "Second Demographic Transition" - the explosion in divorce after the 1960s - has increased the potential for wider marital age gaps, with more people marrying or remarrying later in life.
Supply and demand
With both older and younger men chasing younger women, the law of supply and demand makes the marriage market a tough place for middle-age people of both genders, England said.
For women, the marriage market may be limited to potential husbands who are significantly older, because many men of the same age are interested in younger women, she said.
Less clear is how lower-income older men are marrying younger women.
"We do find that money helps men's chances of getting married," England said. "But if we take youth as our crude measure of beauty, it doesn't seem like men are being able to exchange their money for younger women, so we don't know what's differentiating which older guys are able to marry very young women."
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