Lee Wang-Sheng, McKinnish Terra
Deakin University and IZA.
University of Colorado and IZA.
J Popul Econ. 2018 Apr;31(2):337-362. doi: 10.1007/s00148-017-0658-8. Epub 2017 Jul 15.
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.
我们利用澳大利亚的家庭面板数据，研究婚姻年龄差距如何在婚姻存续期间影响婚姻满意度的演变。我们发现，男性往往对年轻妻子更满意，对年长妻子较不满意。有趣的是，女性同样倾向于对年轻丈夫更满意，对年长丈夫较不满意。与年龄相仿的夫妻相比，不同年龄夫妻的婚姻满意度都会随着婚姻持续时间而下降。这些相对下降抹去了与年轻妻子结婚的男性和与年轻丈夫结婚的女性在婚后6至10年内最初较高的婚姻满意度水平。一个可能的机制是，与年龄相仿的夫妻相比，不同年龄的夫妻对负面冲击的恢复力较弱，我们找到了一些支持这一观点的证据。
