The Gendered Double Standard of Aging in US Marriage Markets
The Gendered Double Standard of Aging in US Marriage Markets
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DOI：
10.1111/j.1728-4457.2009.00309.x
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发表时间：
2009-12-01
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
McClintock, Elizabeth Aura
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
England, Paula;McClintock, Elizabeth Aura
利用1970年至1988年在美国大部分州收集的婚姻数据，我们发现，男性结婚时年龄越大，他们的新娘年龄越大，无论是初婚还是更高阶的婚姻。虽然受教育程度较高的老年男子结婚年龄比受教育程度较低的老年男子略低，但男子结婚年龄更低的模式在所有受教育群体中都很普遍。我们考虑了几种可能的解释，男人结婚的趋势进一步降低年龄，如果他们在结婚年龄较大。虽然我们没有直接衡量身体吸引力的标准，但我们认为，最令人信服的解释是，男性比女性更倾向于根据外表来评估潜在的配偶。因为流行的美的标准有利于年轻女性，当他们结婚时，年龄越大的男人，他们发现自己年龄的女性相对于年轻女性的吸引力越小，导致他们结婚的年龄更低，如果他们结婚的年龄更大。男子偏爱年轻人对妇女造成的后果往往是她们不结婚，而不是嫁给年龄大得多或受教育程度低得多的男子。
Using data on marriages collected in most US states between 1970 and 1988, we show that the older men are when they marry, the more years senior to their brides they are, whether it is a first or higher-order marriage. While older men with more education marry down in age slightly more than less educated older men, the pattern of men marrying further down if they marry later holds strongly for all education groups. We consider several possible explanations for the tendency of men to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. While we have no direct measure of physical attractiveness, we argue that the most compelling interpretation is that men, more than women, evaluate potential spouses on the basis of appearance. Because the prevailing standard of beauty favors young women, the older men are when they marry, the less they find women their own age attractive relative to younger women, leading them to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. The consequence for women of men's preference for youth is more often that they remain unmarried than that they end up married to much older or less educated men.