When push comes to shove, men and women prefer to date younger.

When it comes to dating, the prevailing belief is that men prefer to date a bit younger, while women go for men a few years older. Global marriage stats back that up, showing that men, on average, are 4.2 years older than their wives in mixed-gender marriages. When asked about their preferences, men and women tend to confirm these assumptions, too.

The problem is, past studies have mostly looked at self-reported or online behaviour and not considered what happens in the real world. Plus, a lot of studies tend to focus on college students’ preferences, simply because of who’s available to participate in research at a university.

But a “major” new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that when people actually go on dates, men and women prefer to date younger.

Up until now, “there have been remarkably few studies that capture how adults who are ostensibly seeking a long-term partner feel about potential romantic partners they have met face-to-face,” said study author Paul W. Eastwick, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis and co-host of the “Love Factually”........

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