Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/170847 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10863
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate how the marital age gap affects the evolution of marital satisfaction over the duration of marriage using household panel data from Australia. We find that men tend to be more satisfied with younger wives and less satisfied with older wives. Interestingly, women likewise tend to be more satisfied with younger husbands and less satisfied with older husbands. Marital satisfaction declines with marital duration for both men and women in differently-aged couples relative to those in similarly-aged couples. These relative declines erase the initial higher levels of marital satisfaction experienced by men married to younger wives and women married to younger husbands within 6 to 10 years of marriage. A possible mechanism is that differently-aged couples are less resilient to negative shocks compared to similarly-aged couples, which we find some supportive evidence for.
Subjects: 
assortative matching
marital age gap
marital duration
marital satisfaction
JEL: 
D1
J12
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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