How could we forget one of 2023’s most widespread data visualizations: the updated graph of Leonardo DiCaprio’s age plotted against the age of the women he’s dated since the turn of the century. As his age rises linearly, of course, to nearly 50, that of his partners oscillates between the very late teenage years and, famously, a maximum of 25. 

But this is far from the first time we’ve been collectively enthralled by a large age gap in the public eye. On the more beloved side of the spectrum we have Amal and George Clooney’s ~17 year age gap (46 vs. 62, respectively), or the decade between Priyanka Chopra Jonas (41) and husband Nick (31). 

Relationships like that of France’s president, on the other hand, have, like DiCaprio’s, raised more eyebrows. In 2007, Emmanuel Macron, now 46, married his former high school teacher, Brigitte Macron, now 70. And of course, there’s the one scathing Taylor Swift lyric we know…all too well – “I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age” – widely accepted to be in reference to Jake Gyllenhall’s nine year seniority to her in their relationship which began before she was even 21.

Time and time again, the conversation surrounding these couples is quickly flooded with talk of daddy issues, sugar babies, cougars, predators, and more. But… polls show that nearly four in ten American adults have dated someone with a 10+ year age gap. So why does it capture the attention of so many of us? And do these relationships actually work?

Can I ask you a personal question?

What’s the magic number?

In 2014, data gathered by the Current Population Survey from over 30 thousand heterosexual American couples – and representative of the country’s 70 million such couples – found that only 13% consisted of partners aged within 12 months of each other. Couples in which the male partner was over a year older accounted for 64%, while couples in which the female partner was older claimed the remaining 23%. The average discrepancy in age was not terribly dramatic, though, sitting at 2.3 years. Anonymized Facebook data from the same year both corroborated these findings and showed age gaps in same-sex couples were, on average, wider. Around the same time, roughly 8% of male-female couples in Western countries were estimated to have age gaps of over 10 years, while 1% of such couples touted age gaps of 28 years or more.

In more recent years, these trends have held strong. A 2022 poll of over a thousand American adults by global market research firm Ipsos revealed that 25% of men and 14% of women had dated a partner 10+ years younger than themselves, and 21% of men and 28% of women had dated a partner 10+ years older. Meanwhile, research conducted by OKCupid cofounder, Christian Rudder, found that “while female users look for men roughly the same age as them (or perhaps a year or two older) men prefer women in their early twenties, regardless of their own age.”

Yet, every time we get wind of someone in the public eye rumored to be cozying up to a partner a decade away from them in age, we text our six closest friends to alert them of the news. Though relationships in general – an inevitable blend of love, sex, status, money, and power – draw the scrutiny of onlookers without fail, these “May-December relationships”, whose name uses spring to symbolize youth and winter to symbolize old age, seem to steal the show. People, well, we love our rules. And the half-your-age-plus-seven principle is no exception. Anything that falls outside that range, they say, is just not acceptable.

How did we get here?

Historically, men have predominantly been the older partner in relationships. In a society in which men traditionally held more economic power, it was desirable for them to be able to support a household with an established career, which often correlated to higher age. Women, on the other hand, traditionally had less economic opportunities available to them and thus bore significantly more responsibilities within the home. As such, great importance was placed on the ability to successfully bear children, which often correlated to younger age. While both male and female fertility begins to decline in our late thirties, that decline is much steeper and quicker in women.

But as professional and educational opportunities have dramatically expanded for American women over the past century, with women now accounting for nearly half of the U.S. workforce and roughly 40% of household breadwinners, these previous trends have seen greater variation. One study found, for example, that these “more equal career opportunities for women…potentially explain the recent emergence of toyboy unions, in which the woman is at least 5 years older than her partner.” Public opinion on these situations, however, hasn’t necessarily shifted as quickly. As Grace Lordan, associate professor of behavioral science at the London School of Economics, puts it, “women who match with younger men go most against the grain when it comes to our narrative of marriage, and so suffer the most judgment.”

Perceptions, perceptions, perceptions

Public opinion towards age-gap relationships with a significantly older male partner, on the other hand, has shifted more starkly in recent years, perhaps in direct response to the #MeToo movement and its efforts to call out abusive, coercive, and predatory behavior against women. Though research on the topic states that “age discrepancy does not appear to be associated with nonfatal intimate partner violence,” polls have shown that significantly fewer individuals under the age of 35 believe it’s socially acceptable for a man to date a woman over ten years younger than himself than those over 35. Other studies have similarly found that “younger people condemn man-older age-discrepant relationships more than older people, regardless of sex.” Perhaps not surprisingly then, “concerns over what others will think decrease with age. Nearly a quarter (24%) of Americans ages 18-34 are afraid of what people might think of them if they engaged in age-gap dating, versus 14% of those ages 35-54 and 6% of those ages 55+.”

Such skepticism of age-gap relationships has led to frequent (online) backlash against those in them. Again, how could we forget Leo. But age (or eagle-eyed social media usage) is not enough alone to diagnose a problematic power imbalance, often leading those in the public eye to feel the need to defend their personal relationship decisions. Actress Florence Pugh, for example, was driven to share her thoughts on the matter in 2020 after receiving significant criticism – in her eyes, cyberbullying; in her fans’ eyes, care and protection – for her relationship with a man 21 years her senior. “I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love,” she stated, “really it has nothing to do with you.” 

People are certainly not wrong to fear unhealthy power dynamics in a relationship. Research done on the topic in 2021 found that the “perceived ability to make decisions and have an impact” within a relationship was a “crucial factor in people’s own [relationship quality] as well as their partners’—for both men and women.” It is outsiders’ ability to make such an assessment, however, that falls short. One study on even the most controversial type of age-gap relationships – those between “sugar babies” and their benefactors – found that the power dynamic within such relationships did not reflect a lopsided, male-favored imbalance that their critics might expect: “notably, both groups perceived sugar babies as having equal or more power than sugar benefactors.”

Okay, but what about the outcomes?

So…what does the data say about the success of May-December relationships in the long run? Well, there’s no simple answer. One study on The Marital Satisfaction of Differently-Aged Couples found that those married to younger partners, both male and female, enjoyed higher levels of relationship satisfaction during the first six to ten years of marriage, but that such elevated levels were erased in future years. It also noted that financial distress may trigger more marital dissatisfaction in differently-aged couples than in similarly-aged couples. Another study from Purdue University concluded that “age-gap partners are often more satisfied and committed to one another than partners who are more similar in age.” While the Atlantic ran a piece in 2014 claiming that age gaps in relationships cause higher levels of divorce, their original source has since pointed out that only correlation not causation was evident in their research.

Some studies suggest one “factor that does [have an] impact on the relationship outcomes of age-gap couples is their perceptions of social disapproval. That is, if people in age-gap couples believe their family, friends and wider community disapprove of their union, then relationship commitment decreases and the risk of break-up increases.” Other studies find that having a significantly younger spouse is tied to higher life expectancy in older male partners, either because healthier males can attract younger women, or because those younger women care for them as they age. Women, on the other hand, generally have larger support networks outside of their relationships and thus may benefit less from aging alongside a younger partner (and they’re more likely to age alone than men, anyway). While both men and women alike cite emotional maturity, open-mindedness, financial freedom, having more fun, and physical attractiveness as benefits of dating outside their immediate age group, they also cite not having enough in common and wanting different things out of life as challenges to such relationships.

So…what’s the magic number? Yeah, you guessed it. There isn’t one.

Let us know what you think by voting in our poll and leaving an anonymous comment.

  💭 Our two cents

Age gaps are maybe one of the best examples of the averages-will-never-tell-the-full-story principle out there. Sure, the average age gap in American couples is somewhere around a year or two. But there’s a whole lot of variation within that average, and there are a whole lot of happy couples across that spectrum. We’d even go out on a limb and say you’d probably be hard-pressed to find someone that didn’t know at least one person in a successful, committed relationship with a partner that was, say, five or more years younger or older than themselves.

At the same time, we can totally appreciate why age gaps, especially the chunkier ones, can be surprising and sometimes even a little jarring. Most of us might not spend that much time with those outside our close age range in our typical social settings, so when we hear about a big age discrepancy, our minds immediately jump to those we know: our dad’s friend Gary or our little brother’s immature roommate. But…most of the time, those might not be the most fair or accurate comparisons to a friend’s age-discrepant partner. If maturity and age moved in lockstep with each other, our lives (and relationships) would be a lot simpler than they actually are. And as far as tropes like “daddy issues” go, any relationship at any age can be affected by unhealthy attachment styles. It’s impossible to know the connection between two people from the outside looking in, and it’s impossible to know what they both want out of their relationship.

We hope it goes without saying that we absolutely do not give a pass to older individuals in relationships who take advantage of their younger partners’ lack of life experience, financial independence, or self-confidence to manipulate them for their own gain. Nor do we think you should turn a blind eye if your loved one is stuck in such a relationship. Of course not. But speaking to the majority of cases in which partners in an age-gap relationship are not experiencing emotional or physical abuse, we want to highlight a few other things to look out for in these relationships in your own life. As we saw above, it is critical for both partners to feel they have power and control over the choices they make as a couple. Mutual respect and willingness to make sacrifices must be present from both individuals.

But perhaps an even more common pitfall in age-gap couples than imbalanced power is simply overlooking what you want out of the current stage of your life, perhaps because it doesn’t quite match up with what your partner wants. Maybe you subtly shift your goals or stated preferences or even friendships to better shape yourself into someone that fits the mold of your partner’s stage of life. It’s in these cases that you really risk losing yourself in a relationship, not ones where the year you were born is a few digits off your partner’s. 

 ✅ You should also know…

🍔 Girls Gotta Eat: In this episode of Girls Gotta Eat, Ashley and Rayna go deep on all different types of age-gap relationships and ones they’ve experienced personally (tip: start at 34:32).

👵🏼 The Cut: Check out The Cut’s The Age Gappers for several profiles of “May-December” couples: how they met, how they’ve experienced challenges, and how they make it work.

🛌 U Up: Jared and Jordana talk age gaps and answer a classic listener question: Does a Small Age Gap Still Make Me a Cougar? (tip: start at 20:24).

💃 The girls have spoken

It looks like we have some manifesters in the audience! Last week, we dove into what manifesting is and whether it works and, well, you were the right group for it: 82% of you are either die-hard manifesters (36%) or at least believe there’s some nuanced truth to manifesting (46%). A few of you even reached out saying this was your favorite yet - which we loved! – so here a some more manifesting tips we learned from you: 

• When something good happens, share your gratitude with the universe with a “thank you more please” - it’s all but guaranteed to boost your mood!

• Find journaling intimidating? Try the Five Minute Journal which will get you used to putting positive vibes into the universe (and your own mind) on a daily basis.

• Want some tactical ways to manifest? Check out this pod episode from the queen of manifesting herself (Tinx) on 5 ways to manifest. 

💌 Up Next

That’s all for today! If you liked this edition of Not That Personal, we think one of your friends probably will too – refer one (or two or three) below. ;)

Have something to say? We’d love to hear it – reply to this email or leave an anonymous comment here :) 

Up next: So...why is women's pain so often dismissed?

💖 S & J