This last week New York Times suggesting that older woman/younger man relationships were on the rise. But I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. The data below shows that the percentage of men marrying women ten and especially five years younger is decreasing and the percentage of women marrying men ten and especially five years younger is increasing.
It all looks very dramatic until you check out the y axis. Notice that the y axis for the “husband older” graph is zero to 35%, but the y axis for the “wife older” graph is zero to 10%. This makes the data for men look more impressive than it is. Not that 8 or 10 percentage points is insignificant, but it would be far less impressive on a zero to 100 scale. The data for the women, especially sitting right next to the “husband older” table, look far more impressive than it is.
Only about 6% of women are marrying men five years younger or more. That’s a two percentage point increase since 1960. Not exactly a cougar revolution. One in four men are still marrying women five years younger or more. And, though it appears that they’re not marrying women five years younger or more as frequently, the age distribution of the remaining 69% of marriages is left invisible and most of them probably involve women that are somewhat younger than their husbands.
So, yes, today women are more likely to marry younger men than they were in 1960. But the presentation of the data (the inconsistency in the y axis) makes the degree of difference seem larger than it is.
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comments 8
The Nerd — October 16, 2009
My reason for dating older men? Men my age or younger act like children. I feel like dating "up" is the only way to find an equal. Perhaps my experience is skewed. But it could also be that men are not encouraged to "grow up" as quickly as women are, as far as emotional maturity is concerned. After all, emotions are girl stuff.
Brad — October 16, 2009
"This makes the data for men look more impressive than it is." I'm fairly certain that should either be 'women' in place of 'men' or 'less' instead of 'more'.
Michelle — October 16, 2009
I'm definitely in The Nerd's camp on this one - men who aren't 3-5+ years older than I am nearly always seem too "young" for me. I'm curious as to the implications of the data here. What are the conclusions we're to draw from such a shift? What kinds of assumptions are we (implicitly or explicitly) making about the nature of these relationships? I may be imagining things, but it's almost like there's an implicit argument that age disparities have some relationship with empowerment etc., which is something I definitely don't see in my own life. Why would we get "excited" that more women are marrying younger men?
Alessandra — October 16, 2009
There is also the issue that this data refers only to marriage, not just any personal relationships. I would think the percentages for all personal relationships involving an older women is higher than just the ones who finally get married. It could possibly show a significant percentage change.
And I have to say I really don't like the "cougar" term. "The description 'Cougar Woman' infers a predatory mature woman (35-50+) who hunts, stalks, lusts after and imposes her attentions upon some innocent, inexperienced young male."
Although such profiles for older women do exist in reality, to stereotype every woman who wants to have a relationship with a younger guy as a desperate woman on the prowl for innocent prey is ridiculous and very perverse.
The article also mentions "Cougar cruises" (?!) Sounds sickening, true to the term's worst definitions and inviting the image of a boat full of male gigolos.
And Mariah Carey is 40 already? Sheesus, how time does fly. No wonder she's gotten quite a bit rounder.
Fernando — October 16, 2009
The graph would probably look really boring if it was scaled fairly. Specially in the "by ten years or more" line, it would be a straight line if it was 0-100%. They should have come up with another way to present this theme instead of using somehow deceptive graphs.
karin — December 1, 2009
it has nothing to do with age we should forget age its love that matters even tho a man might be older than the woman he stills sometimes acts immature men take a long time to grow up unlike ladies sometimes u find a younger guy is more experienced than an older man n even the ladiy dat he is datin that is older than him so u c it has to do with the mind not age lets kick age to the curb n let nature takes it course god didnt make age its ppl dat make it such a big difference. thank u