How women prefer younger men ... but they don’t realise it

Conventional wisdom has it that women are attracted to older male partners – perhaps because they are considered wiser or wealthier.

But a survey reveals that such age-old preferences may be wide of the mark these days – though females don’t necessarily realise it.

Scientists carried out their research on more than 6,000 men and women who were set up on blind dates via a dating site.

All were looking for long-term love and were matched with others based on their interests.

While participants weren’t told exactly how old their date would be, they were given an age range – for example, ‘someone in their mid-40s’. After each date, they were asked to fill out a survey which included indicating their level of romantic attraction towards their date.

Analysis found that both men and women said they were more attracted to partners who were actually younger than them.

Professor Paul Eastwick, lead author of the study by the University of California, Davis, said: ‘After a blind date, participants were slightly more attracted to younger partners and this trend was equally true for men and women.

‘This preference for youth among women will be shocking to many people because, in mixed-gender couples, men tend to be older than women. Plus, women generally say they prefer older partners. But women’s preferences on the dates themselves revealed something else entirely.’

The findings are reflected in Nicole Kidman’s latest film, the erotic thriller Babygirl, where she plays a high-powered CEO who puts her career and family on the line to start an affair with a much younger intern played by Harris Dickinson.

The US researchers set out possible reasons why women in their study appeared to prefer younger men. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, they said: ‘It is possible that the women in our sample are romantic risk-takers who are willing to move beyond culturally and historically normative dating mores [values].

‘Second, it is possible that the older men in our sample had other unappealing traits – rather than age per se – that caused the women to be less attracted to them. Finally, it is also possible that modern technology and changing norms produce preferences and choices that mismatch ancestral inclinations.’

The researchers also looked at whether wealthier women were more inclined to go for a younger partner but there was little evidence that income influenced preference for youth.

The study did not look at whether romantic attraction on the first date led to longer-term relationships. ‘These findings suggest that men and women find youth a little more appealing in initial attraction settings, whether they know it or not,’ Professor Eastwick added.