6 ms·

Is this surprising? My intuition, backed by approximately 0 data, is that there's a 5 to 10 year age gap preference, such that men prefer to be with slightly yo

by throwaway22032 4y ago

Is this surprising? My intuition, backed by approximately 0 data, is that there's a 5 to 10 year age gap preference, such that men prefer to be with slightly younger women and women with slightly older men. As a result, young men don't really have a dating pool. Once they hit 30, as long as they're not total wasters, women will take more interest.

version_five 4y ago
See the chart linked below (third image, after two of the PIs) https://news.iu.edu/live/news/28109-study-reveals-average-age-at-conception-for-men https://news.iu.edu/live/news/28109-study-reveals-average-ag... the average age that humans had children throughout the past 250,000 years is 26.9. Furthermore, fathers were consistently older, at 30.7 years on average, than mothers, at 23.2 years on average, but the age gap has shrunk in the past 5,000 years, with the study’s most recent estimates of maternal age averaging 26.4 years. The shrinking gap seems to largely be due to mothers having children at older ages.
- pier25 4y ago
  Seems surprisingly late in life for pre industrial humans. But I guess they had more DNA samples from recent centuries.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  This is part of it. Teen births are way down and women are delaying having kids until their 30s. But also, importantly, women are starting to earn at parity or out earn men, negating the need for a partner to support themselves. This is a cause of the imbalance I believe. The pool of potential female partners wasn’t great before for the age cohort, and empowered women shrink it further. Also, men will date down, women typically don’t. So these higher earning, ambitious women are unable to find a partner that meets their expectations. Men are happy to (or if not happy to, can make do) exit the dating marketplace when this expectation mismatch occurs. There just aren’t enough women who want a low status low earning male partner.
- anoonmoose 4y ago
  I mean, wouldn't you expect a gap in those numbers, purely from a biological perspective? If there's a biological cap on how old a woman can be and give birth, but there's no cap on how old a man can be and father a child, unless there's some truly odd stuff going on it seems obvious that this gap would exist. They even say that the shrinking of the gap over time is largely because of women having children early, not anything changing in men.
- runsWphotons 4y ago
  And doesnt this say that the average maternal age was 23/patenal 30--not the "average age of first child" which would be lower. The average age of first child for women is now over 30 in the us i think. So the difference is huge. (edit: corrected below)
  - metaphor 4y ago
    > The average age of first child for women is now over 30 in the us i think. Less handwaving, more cites[1]. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/b.htm#agefb https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/b.htm#agefb
    - concordDance 4y ago
      I'd like to commend you for adding actual data here! Really helps the discussion :)
    - medvezhenok 4y ago
      Depends on which cohort you look at. For college-educated women, that age is closer to 30: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/for-most-highly-educated-women-motherhood-doesnt-start-until-the-30s/#:~:text=Some%2028%25%20became%20moms%20in,14%25%20were%20at%20least%2035 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/for-most-hi.... Similar breakdown in red states vs blue states. Blue states have much older age of first child, on average (because of correlation with educational attainment). In fact the gap we should talk about is the gap between college-educated women and the rest (which stands at ~8 years)
    - runsWphotons 4y ago
      yes thank you, i mixed up some things. the average age of giving birth is now 30 (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna27827 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna27827) which is (i think) the number being measured in the paper as 23 historically. So the increase is large. Also I am somewhat confused because other sources like the NYT from 2018 say the first birth number is 26...i wonder if the statistics you provided are skewed by younger motherhood for the older part of the 15-44 cohort? Here you can see in many cities the avg age of first birth IS 30+. The big divide is geographical and by college degree. These are 2018 numbers so it wouldve probably gone up a bit more since then (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-bir...)
physicist1337 4y ago
My intuition tells me that it's probably a result of how young people meet these days. A lot of relationships start from dating apps, where it's kind of expected that men will make a first move and then women can filter through them. It's been shown long ago that most men rate most women as above average (in attractiveness), whereas most women rate most men as below average.
- tokai 4y ago
  >It's been shown long ago that most men rate most women as above average (in attractiveness), whereas most women rate most men as below average. Is that's from the OkCupid data? While interesting you definitely can't claim that 'it has been shown' if that data is the foundation.
  - the_doctah 4y ago
    What's your personal "it's been shown" threshold then?
    - tokai 4y ago
      Scientific studies. Not a blog post from a private company. There was a host of potential issues with their data due to sampling, questioning, etc.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        Good luck finding anyone that wants to do such a study. The best we're going to get is data from dating apps. And even that's now hard to find, since Match.com removed that blog post after purchasing OKCupid.
      - bongoman37 4y ago
        [dead]
runsWphotons 4y ago
it is definitely surprising...a big change in last 5-10 years. Women actually dont prefer a v large age gap--less than men and on the order of 2-3 years. Age def explains some of this statistic but isnt enough to explain it all. This is probably also result of slight harem effect and of people categorising relationships differently (man thinks he is single, woman thinks its monogamous etc).
- runsWphotons 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/datepsych/status/1624071030154096640 https://twitter.com/datepsych/status/1624071030154096640
- HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
  Well, it's not exactly about age per se from either side. If we're going by the crass (but largely true) stereotypes, then men are driven by looks, and women (notwithstanding any "bad boy" dating inclination) are more looking for a protector/provider (i.e. maturity/money). Maybe with more men living with parents due to economy/housing/etc, this has an effect.
  - runsWphotons 4y ago
    yes as i said age has something to do with this, maybe even the big effect, but probably doesnt explain the whole change. And if women are dating men with a larger age gap than before because of the factors you stated (taking men longer to get money, basically), it is against their stated preferences of age gap, so they are compromising more than before. And of course men are taking longer to get to "maturity/money" stage in some part bc of financial competition from young women, so this interesting dynamic.
- lytefm 4y ago
  I suppose that the age similarity might mainly be a peer group effect. People in the early twenties tend to hang out a lot with people of around their same age, e.g. due to college/ university classes or parties. As long as dating happens predominantly within the peer group, age differences usually aren't very big. But once online dating is used, larger age differences occur quite naturally.
HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
I'd agree - this is hardly news. What's the next headline ? "Tide comes in twice a day" ?
jjgreen 4y ago
Half your age plus seven honey :-)
- concordDance 4y ago
  Is a made up rule that people don't follow. Very few 22 year old men will go for a 40 year old women, but the reverse isn't true.
  - jjgreen 4y ago
    Speak for yourself, I had a great time with a lady over 40 when I was 19, ... are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson?
    - concordDance 4y ago
      You'd be one of the very few.
francisofascii 4y ago
Worldwide, the average is 4.2 years. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36165033/#:~:text=Worldwide%2C%20men%20are%20an%20average,2.2%20years%20in%20North%20America https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36165033/#:~:text=Worldwide%....
lytefm 4y ago
It is not surprising at all if we consider evolutionary psychology and how dating actually works due to the differences between men and women. David Buss did a lot of research in that field, this [1] is a nice intro. Women and men have completely different attractiveness trajectories and „what's at risk” when having sex. The article correctly argues that societal changes made it a lot more difficult for young men to find a romantic partner: - No pressure to marry early in your twenties as a woman. Instead, it's even expected to „have some fun“ and marry later. - Dating apps and a more individualistic society make it easy for women to find a mate outside of their social cirle. Unless they've been doing exceptionally well (e.g. are physically fit, have a good status in their peer group, a well-rounded personality and make some money), men in their early twenties don't have a lot to offer to women of their age. On the other hand, women are usually in their peak attractiveness in early/mid twenties and can easily select an older partner. Anecdotal experience also confirms that. I'm in my late 20s, my GF in her early twenties. She had no serious interest in anyone from her school year. We met on a dating app. Quite a few of my similar-aged friends who had very litte luck with women found a romantic partner once they've finished their degree and earned some money. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu4Uki8VyLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu4Uki8VyLc
polotics 4y ago
Hug Hefner's intuition was the famous formula: age of the male divided by two, plus seven... So the ideal same-age relationship is between two adolescents of 14, and a successful 40 year old male would, all things considered, prefer pairing with a 27 year old female. This matches my observations.

version_five 4y ago

See the chart linked below (third image, after two of the PIs) https://news.iu.edu/live/news/28109-study-reveals-average-age-at-conception-for-men https://news.iu.edu/live/news/28109-study-reveals-average-ag... the average age that humans had children throughout the past 250,000 years is 26.9. Furthermore, fathers were consistently older, at 30.7 years on average, than mothers, at 23.2 years on average, but the age gap has shrunk in the past 5,000 years, with the study’s most recent estimates of maternal age averaging 26.4 years. The shrinking gap seems to largely be due to mothers having children at older ages.

pier25 4y ago
Seems surprisingly late in life for pre industrial humans. But I guess they had more DNA samples from recent centuries.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
This is part of it. Teen births are way down and women are delaying having kids until their 30s. But also, importantly, women are starting to earn at parity or out earn men, negating the need for a partner to support themselves. This is a cause of the imbalance I believe. The pool of potential female partners wasn’t great before for the age cohort, and empowered women shrink it further. Also, men will date down, women typically don’t. So these higher earning, ambitious women are unable to find a partner that meets their expectations. Men are happy to (or if not happy to, can make do) exit the dating marketplace when this expectation mismatch occurs. There just aren’t enough women who want a low status low earning male partner.
anoonmoose 4y ago
I mean, wouldn't you expect a gap in those numbers, purely from a biological perspective? If there's a biological cap on how old a woman can be and give birth, but there's no cap on how old a man can be and father a child, unless there's some truly odd stuff going on it seems obvious that this gap would exist. They even say that the shrinking of the gap over time is largely because of women having children early, not anything changing in men.
runsWphotons 4y ago
And doesnt this say that the average maternal age was 23/patenal 30--not the "average age of first child" which would be lower. The average age of first child for women is now over 30 in the us i think. So the difference is huge. (edit: corrected below)
- metaphor 4y ago
  > The average age of first child for women is now over 30 in the us i think. Less handwaving, more cites[1]. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/b.htm#agefb https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/b.htm#agefb
  - concordDance 4y ago
    I'd like to commend you for adding actual data here! Really helps the discussion :)
  - medvezhenok 4y ago
    Depends on which cohort you look at. For college-educated women, that age is closer to 30: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/for-most-highly-educated-women-motherhood-doesnt-start-until-the-30s/#:~:text=Some%2028%25%20became%20moms%20in,14%25%20were%20at%20least%2035 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/for-most-hi.... Similar breakdown in red states vs blue states. Blue states have much older age of first child, on average (because of correlation with educational attainment). In fact the gap we should talk about is the gap between college-educated women and the rest (which stands at ~8 years)
  - runsWphotons 4y ago
    yes thank you, i mixed up some things. the average age of giving birth is now 30 (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna27827 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna27827) which is (i think) the number being measured in the paper as 23 historically. So the increase is large. Also I am somewhat confused because other sources like the NYT from 2018 say the first birth number is 26...i wonder if the statistics you provided are skewed by younger motherhood for the older part of the 15-44 cohort? Here you can see in many cities the avg age of first birth IS 30+. The big divide is geographical and by college degree. These are 2018 numbers so it wouldve probably gone up a bit more since then (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-birth-age-gap.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/04/upshot/up-bir...)

physicist1337 4y ago

My intuition tells me that it's probably a result of how young people meet these days. A lot of relationships start from dating apps, where it's kind of expected that men will make a first move and then women can filter through them. It's been shown long ago that most men rate most women as above average (in attractiveness), whereas most women rate most men as below average.

tokai 4y ago
>It's been shown long ago that most men rate most women as above average (in attractiveness), whereas most women rate most men as below average. Is that's from the OkCupid data? While interesting you definitely can't claim that 'it has been shown' if that data is the foundation.
- the_doctah 4y ago
  What's your personal "it's been shown" threshold then?
  - tokai 4y ago
    Scientific studies. Not a blog post from a private company. There was a host of potential issues with their data due to sampling, questioning, etc.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Good luck finding anyone that wants to do such a study. The best we're going to get is data from dating apps. And even that's now hard to find, since Match.com removed that blog post after purchasing OKCupid.
    - bongoman37 4y ago
      [dead]

runsWphotons 4y ago

it is definitely surprising...a big change in last 5-10 years. Women actually dont prefer a v large age gap--less than men and on the order of 2-3 years. Age def explains some of this statistic but isnt enough to explain it all. This is probably also result of slight harem effect and of people categorising relationships differently (man thinks he is single, woman thinks its monogamous etc).

runsWphotons 4y ago
https://twitter.com/datepsych/status/1624071030154096640 https://twitter.com/datepsych/status/1624071030154096640
HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
Well, it's not exactly about age per se from either side. If we're going by the crass (but largely true) stereotypes, then men are driven by looks, and women (notwithstanding any "bad boy" dating inclination) are more looking for a protector/provider (i.e. maturity/money). Maybe with more men living with parents due to economy/housing/etc, this has an effect.
- runsWphotons 4y ago
  yes as i said age has something to do with this, maybe even the big effect, but probably doesnt explain the whole change. And if women are dating men with a larger age gap than before because of the factors you stated (taking men longer to get money, basically), it is against their stated preferences of age gap, so they are compromising more than before. And of course men are taking longer to get to "maturity/money" stage in some part bc of financial competition from young women, so this interesting dynamic.
lytefm 4y ago
I suppose that the age similarity might mainly be a peer group effect. People in the early twenties tend to hang out a lot with people of around their same age, e.g. due to college/ university classes or parties. As long as dating happens predominantly within the peer group, age differences usually aren't very big. But once online dating is used, larger age differences occur quite naturally.

HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago

I'd agree - this is hardly news. What's the next headline ? "Tide comes in twice a day" ?

jjgreen 4y ago

Half your age plus seven honey :-)

concordDance 4y ago
Is a made up rule that people don't follow. Very few 22 year old men will go for a 40 year old women, but the reverse isn't true.
- jjgreen 4y ago
  Speak for yourself, I had a great time with a lady over 40 when I was 19, ... are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson?
  - concordDance 4y ago
    You'd be one of the very few.

francisofascii 4y ago

Worldwide, the average is 4.2 years. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36165033/#:~:text=Worldwide%2C%20men%20are%20an%20average,2.2%20years%20in%20North%20America https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36165033/#:~:text=Worldwide%....

lytefm 4y ago

It is not surprising at all if we consider evolutionary psychology and how dating actually works due to the differences between men and women. David Buss did a lot of research in that field, this [1] is a nice intro. Women and men have completely different attractiveness trajectories and „what's at risk” when having sex. The article correctly argues that societal changes made it a lot more difficult for young men to find a romantic partner: - No pressure to marry early in your twenties as a woman. Instead, it's even expected to „have some fun“ and marry later. - Dating apps and a more individualistic society make it easy for women to find a mate outside of their social cirle. Unless they've been doing exceptionally well (e.g. are physically fit, have a good status in their peer group, a well-rounded personality and make some money), men in their early twenties don't have a lot to offer to women of their age. On the other hand, women are usually in their peak attractiveness in early/mid twenties and can easily select an older partner. Anecdotal experience also confirms that. I'm in my late 20s, my GF in her early twenties. She had no serious interest in anyone from her school year. We met on a dating app. Quite a few of my similar-aged friends who had very litte luck with women found a romantic partner once they've finished their degree and earned some money. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu4Uki8VyLc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu4Uki8VyLc

polotics 4y ago

Hug Hefner's intuition was the famous formula: age of the male divided by two, plus seven... So the ideal same-age relationship is between two adolescents of 14, and a successful 40 year old male would, all things considered, prefer pairing with a 27 year old female. This matches my observations.