Large age gap in marriage tied to lower intelligence and lower salaries

You know that timeworn stereotype that wealthy men wait to get married so they can impress younger fertile women with their high-earning potential?

Well, a large U.S. study published in the Review of Economics and Statistics has recently thrown a monkey wrench into that equation.

Because it turns out that those who are married to older or younger spouses have lower salaries, lower cognitive abilities, and are not as educated or attractive as couples of similar ages.

And the greater the age difference, the higher the correlation with these negative factors.

"It really depends on who your social network is," says Hani Mansour, study co-author and economics professor at the University of Colorado Denver. "People with lower earning potential are in networks that are more age diverse."

Also see: Just two glasses of champagne a week can help improve memory, study claims

Mansour and his colleague Terra McKinnish, an economics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data from 1960 to 2000 looking at samples of first marriages for couples ages 25 to 60.

They found that unions between older men and younger women are becoming less common, and when they do occur, men tend to have lower levels of education, lower cognitive scores and lower occupational earnings than their peers.

And while marriages between older women and younger men are becoming slightly more common, the researchers say they didn't find any evidence of a "new cougar phenomenon."

People who marry spouses of similar ages tend to be more financially successful.

"They spend more years in school and are more likely to attend high-quality post-secondary schools with age-homogenous student populations," the researchers write in their paper.

Also see: Ten-year-old boy teaches men how to be a gentleman

"When they enter the workforce, they are often in jobs with high upward mobility, so that other individuals who share their same job description are similarly aged," they continue.

In order to assess the physical attractiveness of participants, researchers used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. Interviewees looked at images of these participants in their preteens to early 30s and were asked to rate their attractiveness on a scale of 1-5 at different age intervals.

The researchers assessed intelligence based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which revealed participant scores on a battery of high school tests measuring verbal, math and arithmetic reasoning skills.

What are your thoughts on why people marry much younger or older? Do these study results surprise you in any way?