We often hear that age is just a number and doesn’t matter. But according to the experts, there is actually an ideal age gap between you and your partner.
A new study from Emory University in Atlanta finds that couples with an age difference of five years or more are 18% more likely to break up than partners who are closer in age. Experts have concluded that the greater the age gap between you and your partner, the more likely it is to end in a separation.
For example, partners are 39% more likely to separate if they are more than 10 years apart. If the age gap reaches 20 years, there is a 95% chance that the relationship will end in a breakup.
While the researchers found that the risk of a breakup increased gradually with age difference, they also found the ideal age difference between partners: it turns out to be a year or less. If you and your partner were born less than 12 months apart, the odds of divorce are only three percent!
“It may just be that couples with these characteristics are on average more likely to divorce for other reasons,” says Hugo Mialon, one of the study’s researchers. It is therefore not necessary to fear divorce at the next argument if the age difference in the couple is more than five years.
According to Forskning.no, the average age difference between a man and a woman in a heterosexual couple is 2.5 years. This figure has not changed since the late 1980s, according to statistics from the Central Statistics Office.
The results of the Emory University study are corroborated by another study from 2017. This one confirms that both men and women report greater satisfaction in marriage with younger spouses, but that this satisfaction decreases with age. time in marriages with a significant age gap between partners.
The 2017 study concludes that couples of the same age have the best chance of a successful, lasting relationship. So, ready to reconsider the age of your next date?
