According to sources while men and women both tend to experience marital satisfaction with younger spouses, the satisfaction is likely to fade over time if there is a significant age gap between the partners. Currently the findings showed that for the couples with a big age gap between the partners, the initial satisfaction tends to erode rapidly after six to ten years of marriage.
However, when paired with a younger spouse, men and women both showed greater marital satisfaction. Terra McKinnish, Professor at University of Colorado Boulder "They find that men who are married to younger wives are the most satisfied and men who are married to older wives are the least satisfied”.
The study found that marriages with large age gap between partners are also less resilient in the face of economic downturns relative to their similarly aged counterparts. By contrast, an unexpected financial shake-up could expose underlying tensions and mismatches in couples with a larger age gap, McKinnish said. The sample initially comprised of 7,682 households containing 19,914 individuals and participants are re-surveyed every year with questions that measure various aspects of life satisfaction.
