Minding the (Age) Gap: The Identity and Emotion Work of Men and Women in Age-Discrepant Romantic Relationships

ABSTRACT

People involved in an age-discrepant relationship, where one partner is significantly older than the other, are typically viewed with negative cultural tropes and stereotypes. Using a chain sampling technique to recruit participants, data were collected through 20 in-depth interviews with men and women who experienced being in a relationship with an age gap of 10 or more years between partners. Analyses revealed participants used common techniques to manage and overcome the stigma, both in self-interaction and in interaction with others. In self-interaction, participants drew from “love narratives” to reframe their involvement with someone much younger or older as something outside of their control. When interacting with others, participants used techniques of passing, lampooning, and dismissing. Passing involved participants’ ability to feel and appear closer in age to their partner. Lampooning involved the use of humor to deflect the threat of stigma. Dismissing involved repudiation of the stigma associated with age-discrepant relationships. Importantly, participants’ use of these techniques worked either in defense of or as a reaction against the inequality they faced in an age-discrepant relationship.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Because of the small number of age-discrepant relationships, it was a challenge to recruit participants for this study. As a result, we made the methodological choice to expand our sample to include those who had previous involvement in an age-discrepant relationship. Ultimately, we did not discover any noteworthy differences in our findings between those who are presently involved in, or were previously involved in, an age-discrepant relationship.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ashley Niccolai

Ashley Niccolai, MA, is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Penn State. Her research specialization is in the sociology of the family, and her scholarship examines how families have changed over time and how people experience and navigate modern family life.

Melissa Swauger, PhD, is an associate professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies affiliated faculty at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She has published several articles and presented at numerous conferences on topics examining the impact of gender, race, and social class inequalities on adolescent girls’ aspirations, ethical qualitative research with youth, service learning, and public sociology.