Mind the gap: Could evolutionary tendencies have driven Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas to make a pairing with a large age gap? Researchers found that in their study, couples with a smaller four to six year age difference are the most reproductively successful.
Credit: AFP
PARIS: A new study confirms that evolutionary pressure – the drive to have more children, in short – is what causes the typical age gap within male-female couples.
Austrian researchers explored the theory that men go for younger, sexually attractive women in order to boost their chances of reproductive success, while women prefer older, successful men to provide the resources and security that increase their offspring's chance of survival.
The study, which appears in the British journal Biology Letters, is authored by Martin Fieder, an anthropologist at the University of Vienna, and Susanne Huber, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna.
Four to six years
They trawled through a Swedish population database, covering 11,500 men and women born between 1945 and 1955, to see at what age these individuals became parents. Among couples who stayed together, the most children were born in households where there was an age difference of four to six years.
When couples split up and mated again, they each opted for partners who were younger than the first. That was especially so for older men, who went for women who were much younger. Women looking for a new mate generally chose a male who was slightly older than herself.
"The age preference for the partner increases [the] individual [reproductive] fitness of both men and women," write the authors, who speculate that this trait has been acquired through millennia of evolution.
Bullocks!
This article is ridiculous and is just another self-pat-on-the-back for men who traipse after younger women. Tell us, how many articles are men going to write to justify turning their noses up at women their own ages. And this article was insulting to me as a woman. Interviewing several women here and there doe not equal "all" or even "most" women.
The comment made in the article about women seeking out these so-called "older" males for "financial security" and "resources"...suggests that in order to have these "resources" females must latch on to an older man. This is not 1965. Women are making more money than ever before. If they don't have "resources" of their own, it's out of sheer laziness and poor decision-making. Women no longer need men for resources. Not in 2010. They need men for sex, companionship, partnerships and friendships, but not resources.
P.S. Get a CAPTHA that "human beings" can actually read, please.
Response to angry reader: article written on 25 june 2010
I respect your view on the subject that men are seeking out younger women and vice versa .it's my prerogative to also voice mine.
The research was a general observation of statistics and yes i too i'm looking out for an older alpha male who would be a protector to the offspring i am about to embark on having.
I am not lazy,i am well read and intelligent.however my progression has been slower than i would have wanted,due to interesting factors like .....being honorable enough not to engage on sexual affairs with bosses which seems to be one of the only way to climb up .this is the 3rd job i have encountered this.amonst other factors that i wont go into detail ....as a result.......
I will risk the genetic composition of my offspring by mating with an otherwise genetically weak ( older man) to ensure that my kids have financial security.
This is a man eat man society, please try look at other p'ple's perspective....it's a crazy world.