Robert J. Stonebraker, Winthrop University
In high school and college, I avoided sitting in the front row. I aimed for a seat about three-fourths of the way back by the windows. Windows are always a desirable diversion, but I was interested in something else. I was interested in girls.
From my vantage point almost all of the coeds in the room were arrayed in front of me. Ones in the very back were hidden, but girls rarely sat there. I could face the chalkboard, pretend to be looking at the instructor, and ogle away.
I would select ones I might like and ask them for a date. In fact, I asked lots of them for dates. I had to. Most turned me down, so I kept trying new and different ones. I squandered many years mooning over girls who repeatedly rejected my advances. Friends gleefully teased that my low batting average at romance was caused by a simple lack of animal magnetism. Quite frankly, it was all very depressing.
Then I learned some economics. With the help of some very attractive equations and graphs, I discovered that it wasn't me at all. The cause of my distress was not some inadequate amorous aptitude; I was simply the innocent victim of powerful economic forces beyond my control.
Economics and romance? Of course. Remember, economics is about choices, all kinds of choices. The same maximization models that elucidate corporate pricing policy can explain the romantic rejections of my youth. Simple. The girls I coveted were in my school classes; they were girls of my same age. Regrettably, girls my age were not interested in boys my age. They wanted older men. They still do. Sixteen year-old girls are far more likely to accompany 18-year-old boys than the reverse. Women marry older men; men rarely marry older women.
Why? The 16-year-old girls claimed it was "a maturity thing." Girls matured faster and, therefore, needed more mature male companions. Bunk. Even if the argument is valid at age 16, it certainly is not valid at age 35. Scientists would be hard-pressed to prove that 35-year-old men are less mature than 35-year-old women. Yet the same older-man bias exists at age 35 as at age 16. Moreover, if maturity were an important trait in a mate, why wouldn't men be drawn to more mature, older women just as women are drawn to more mature, older men?
Costs and benefits
An economist needs more substance. An economist wants an argument about relative costs and benefits. And we have one, one that springs from the role of men and women in the economic marketplace.
Let's face it. Both men and women want a successful mate. Nobody wants a dog. In a traditional world women specialized in childbearing and in-house production, while men specialized in outside market production. As a result, men wanted women who would be successful mothers and cooks. Women wanted men who would be successful breadwinners.
However, the requisite talents for such success are not manifest at the same ages. A woman's likely proficiency at childbearing and cooking often are apparent as soon as she reaches physical maturity. Not so with men. The eventual fortune of a Bill Gates or a Shaquille O'Neal could not have been predicted at age 16. A man's ability to be a successful breadwinner is likely to be evident only after years of experience.
If so, women will not want to risk tying the knot with an untried youth. Why gamble with a mere child when older men are safer marital bets? Less talented women may have little choice, but the most enticing ones will be able to command the attention of seasoned market veterans. The most sought-after women will mate with older men. Similarly, the men most confident of eventual market success will not marry at early age. They understand that, if they hold out, their future financial feats should enable them to snare far more alluring partners.
Does it make sense? Do I have a good excuse for my substandard success in pitching woo? Yes. Economists Ted Bergstrom and Philip Bagnoli examined marital age gaps in 90 countries from 1950 to 1985.1 The average age for husbands exceeded that of their wives in every country during every time period. More importantly, the patterns in age gaps are precisely what the above theories would predict. For example:
1. The age difference between husbands and wives should be falling over time as labor market opportunities for women increase. As women specialize less in raising families and begin to compete in the labor force, the age difference between men and women in marital relationships should shrink. As the market success of women becomes a more valuable piece of the marital pie, men -- like women -- will find it advantageous to look for a proven veteran rather than an unproven child. The data support this hypothesis. The age gap between husbands and wives fell over the 1950 to 1985 period in almost every country.
2. The age difference between husbands and wives should be smaller in developed countries where women have better labor-market opportunities. In the U.S., the average age difference was 1.9 years in 1985. The average for Western Europe, Canada and Australia was 2.5 years. However, in less industrialized and more traditional societies, the age gap was higher. Men were an average of 3.5 years older than their wives in the sample countries from Latin America and Asia, and 5.7 years older than their wives in the African countries studied.
3. Men with the least chance of economic success should marry at an earlier age. Men expecting to be a financial flop have no incentive to wait for marriage. The longer they wait, the clearer their lack of pecuniary prospects will become -- better to marry quickly before potential mates catch on. Indeed, Bergstrom and Bagnoli discover that, all else being equal, men at the lower end of the U.S. income distribution married at an earlier age.
Subsequent researchers have argued income inequality matters as well.2 If women expect all potential husbands to earn similar levels of income, waiting to see which might be more successful makes little sense. The risk of marrying a younger, unproven mate is minimal. However, if the wages of potential husbands are likely to differ widely, waiting to see which ones will earn more becomes a better strategy. In a world of increased income inequality, women should be increasingly reluctant to marry before the financial winners are able to distance themselves from the losers.
Interestingly, income inequality in the U.S. has risen in recent decades. Most economists chalk it up to increased returns to higher education. Wage differentials between college graduates and non-graduates have soared, presumably because graduates are better able to take advantage of new technologies.3 Unfortunately, because it now takes more years of education before men can signal their financial success, it also takes more years before they can attract the most desirable women.
By the way, I did, eventually, catch on to the game. I renounced females
