Today I wanted to hit on a topic that still seems un-addressed. Age disparity in relationships that cause a power imbalance. The list contains ten reasons why it's wrong to fall in love with someone older… This contributes to a theory several friends and I came to several years ago, which we began to see embodied in how many of us date.
The age difference in a sexual relationship is a common feature in many modern relationships. Social acceptance of age difference and concept about what is considered a significant age difference has varied over time, and also depends on different cultures and different legal systems, not to forget ethical reasons.
According to a 2010 study of 22,400 subjects in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan, women showed no preference for much younger men. According to this study, women are generally interested in men of the same age or slightly older. This study also supports the different types of relationships (e.g. Enjokasai, Sugardaddy, Trophy Wife) that younger women with older men enter into for various reasons. An earlier study had also shown this result.
While the findings are more favorable for this construct we as a society often look less favorably toward the reverse.
While terms like mistress and girlfriend are the common words used to describe an older man and younger woman. Woman are see as cougars, sugar mommies (with Boy Toys), or MILFs. This is how our culture describes different types of women's interests in younger male sexual partners or vice versa, and are supported, for example, by a 2003 study by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). After that, 34% of women over the age of 40 meet with younger men. Likewise, many older women have been paying younger lovers for sexual adventures in many of the tourist resorts in the Caribbean, Asia and Africa for several decades.
According to another 2003 study by the Office for National Statistics for England and Wales, the number of women married to younger men rose from 15% to 26% between 1963 and 1998.
According to the US Census Bureau, there were fewer than half a million couples in the United States in 1997 with an age difference of at least ten years. In 2003, however, there were about 3 million couples in which the man was at least six years younger than the woman. International online dating services, such as match.com with about 20 million members, note an increase in the proportion of women in their databases who would like to meet a man who is at least ten years younger.
In today's Western society, many divorced older women are socially and financially independent.
Whether or not this type of relationship structure will become more normalized in our society is yet to be seen.
One point that is still relevant, however, is the problem that age disparity (10 years) plays in a relationship.