The Price of Youth: Income and Age-Hypergamy

This paper focuses on the role of age gaps and income in the mating process. We test the predictions of different theories of age heterogamy using a French exhaustive administrative database of newly formed same-sex and heterosexual couples. In both heterosexual and male same-sex couple formation, the age gap between the richer and poorer partner, as well as the likelihood of an extreme age gap, increases with the income of the richer male partner, especially when he belongs to the top income decile. By contrast, women, even when they rank high in the income distribution, are usually matched with an older partner. Women are found to mate with a younger partner in only one specific case: above age 60, when they provide at least 75% of household income or rank higher than their partner in the distribution of income within their respective age group. The marriage market thus seems to be best described by exchange theory, mitigated by a remnant of traditional norms. In a sense, the price of youth depends on the sex of the buyer.