A couple of years ago I posted on the relationship between estimated average IQ and desired age differential in marriage partners by women at the national level. The revealed correlation was a statistically significant .58. That is, the lower a country's average IQ, the older that country's women want their men to be.
How does this align with what actually happens? Extremely well. Using 69 countries for which data on both attributes are available, the correlation between estimated average IQ and the average age differential for first marriages at the national level is a statistically significant .61 (p=0), nearly identical to stated female desires. The data used for desired age differential are from the eighties and before, whereas the actually age differentials at first marriage are almost all from the 2000s (there a few countries for which the most recent estimates available are from the nineties), suggesting that the relationship is more than "just so".
The two biggest outliers are South Africa (low IQ, low age differential) and Taiwan (high IQ, high age differential). In the case of the former, I wonder how representative the marriage data are. If it is skewed white, that offers an explanation.
Excepting Taiwan, the best place in the developed, industrialized world for a guy wanting a younger woman is Poland, followed closely by Greece, Italy, and Germany. The Anglophone countries, in contrast, are among the most age-egalitarian.
I also looked at the relationship between age differential at first marriage and purchasing power parity. Predictably, it travels alongside IQ, but the correlation is less rigorous, at .51 (p=0).
How does this align with what actually happens? Extremely well. Using 69 countries for which data on both attributes are available, the correlation between estimated average IQ and the average age differential for first marriages at the national level is a statistically significant .61 (p=0), nearly identical to stated female desires. The data used for desired age differential are from the eighties and before, whereas the actually age differentials at first marriage are almost all from the 2000s (there a few countries for which the most recent estimates available are from the nineties), suggesting that the relationship is more than "just so".
The two biggest outliers are South Africa (low IQ, low age differential) and Taiwan (high IQ, high age differential). In the case of the former, I wonder how representative the marriage data are. If it is skewed white, that offers an explanation.
Excepting Taiwan, the best place in the developed, industrialized world for a guy wanting a younger woman is Poland, followed closely by Greece, Italy, and Germany. The Anglophone countries, in contrast, are among the most age-egalitarian.
I also looked at the relationship between age differential at first marriage and purchasing power parity. Predictably, it travels alongside IQ, but the correlation is less rigorous, at .51 (p=0).
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