Marriages with big age gaps can be bad news - here’s why
Marriages where there’s a big age gap between the spouses often start off well – but they can go off the rails a few years down the line.
To begin with, couples are often happy (particularly the older partner, unsurprisingly) – but such couples are more vulnerable to big shocks, such as financial difficulties.
University of Colorado Boulder researchers examined 13 years of data from thousands of households in Australia – and found that satisfaction in the marriages tends to ‘wear off’ after 6-10 years.
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‘We find that men who are married to younger wives are the most satisfied, and men who are married to older wives are the least satisfied,’ said Terra McKinnish, a professor of economics at CU Boulder and a co-author of the new study.
‘Women are also particularly dissatisfied when they’re married to older husbands and particularly satisfied if they’re married to younger husbands.’
‘Over time, the people who are married to a much older or younger spouse tend to have larger declines in marital satisfaction over time compared to those who are married to spouses who are similar in age.’
Such couples also respond poorly to financial shocks – perhaps because they have different views on life decisions such as having children, or general spending habits.
McKinnish said, ‘We find that when couples have a large age difference, that they tend to have a much larger decline in marital satisfaction when faced with an economic shock than couples that have a very small age difference.’
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