The price of youth: Income and Age-Hypergamy

Claudia Senik and Anne Solaz ()
Additional contact information
Claudia Senik: SU - Sorbonne Université, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Anne Solaz: INED - Institut national d'études démographiques

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: 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 man-man couple formation, the age gap between the richer and poorer partner, and the likelihood of an extreme age gap, increase with the income of the male richer 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 their 60s, when they provide at least 75% of the household income or rank higher than their partner in the distribution of income in 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 way, the price of youth depends on the sex of the buyer.

Keywords: Marriage market; Samesex couples; Mating criteria; Couple formation; Age-hypergamy; Age gap (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04840609v2
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04840609v2/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-04840609

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().