Age-dissimilar couple relationships have begun to capture social scientists’ attention in recent decades. Yet qualitative examinations of age-dissimilar unions have been rare, and these virtually always focus on couples’ newly formed relationships, including issues of power, gender, sexual consent or problems in relationships (Alarie Reference Alarie2019; Leahy Reference Leahy1991; Pyke and Adams Reference Pyke and Adams2010). Discussion of couples’ futures together – across the lifecourse and into old age – has for the most part been sidelined (compare Gustafson Reference Gustafson2015; Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018; Kridahl and Kolk Reference Kridahl and Kolk2018). Also overlooked is how age dissimilarities emerge among ageing populations and how they have the potential to consolidate or reform gendered care relations and financial inequalities. Here, older (usually male) partners might have greater financial power, while younger (usually female) ones have better health and the ability to physically care for their partners in future.
This article examines heterosexual age-dissimilar couples’ imagined futures, focusing on how they understand or ignore potential changes to their relations due to ageing. It scrutinises if and how couples’ imaginings expose broader cultural understandings about age(ing), gender, care and love. Drawing on data from a project investigating age-dissimilar relationships, undertaken in Perth, Western Australia, it reports on interviews carried out with people who were currently or previously in heterosexual, age-dissimilar unions. While located in this context, the findings are pertinent to other cultural contexts, as notions of age-appropriateness in relationships and other issues faced by age-dissimilar couples are experienced worldwide, albeit in diverse ways.
The meaning of the term ‘age-dissimilar’ has been subject to extensive debate, with previous reviews of research diverging on the matter, designating a variety of chronological age differences – ten years, for instance – as significant (Berardo et al. Reference Berardo, Appel and Berardo1993; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2021). Older studies tended to avoid defining age differences (Berardo et al. Reference Berardo, Appel and Berardo1993), and contemporary quantitative and qualitative research works with either ranges of age differences (zero to five years, and six and above years, for example) or mean differences, with the most recent studies tending to see definitions based on specific gaps as too restrictive (Amato et al. Reference Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers2009; Carmichael Reference Carmichael2011; Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003; Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2021). This work recognises that age differences are judged differently depending on circumstances: in older woman unions, small differences can be viewed as substantial (Alarie Reference Alarie2019; Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2015). Definitions also vary across cultures. Many Euro-American countries, for instance, are characterised by strong norms of couple similarity, making large differences appear exceptional (Macfarlane Reference Macfarlane1987; Van de Putte et al. Reference Van de Putte, Van Poppel, Vanassche, Sanchez, Jidkova, Eeckhaut, Oris and Matthijs2009). The significance of age can also vary throughout the lifecourse, particularly if one partner is below the age of consent, reaching old age, in need of care in the context of rising life expectancies, or in a position of power (Leahy Reference Leahy1991).
This analysis of age-dissimilar couples seeks to uncover the ‘culture in talk’ among them: ‘the partial and often cryptic’ manifestations of their shared understandings about love, gender, care and age(ing) (Quinn Reference Quinn2005: 4). It highlights talk about old age, illness and care through the theoretical lenses of democratisation, responsibility and gendered double standards of ageing and care. Analysis reveals a tendency for people to express gendered anxieties about ageing yet to insist upon the meaninglessness or irrelevance of age. Here, love is seen as (sometimes) capable of bypassing or transcending boundaries or differences. Drawing attention to such tensions complicates enduring sociological ideas, wherein age is often seen as increasingly individualised, responsibilised and malleable, and couple relationships – and the future care relations associated with them – as equal to a far greater extent than previously, especially across the Global North (Bauman Reference Bauman2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim Reference Beck and Beck-Gernsheim1995; Carter and Gibson Reference Carter, Arocha, Carter and Arocha2020; Giddens Reference Giddens1992; Illouz Reference Illouz2007, Reference Illouz2021; Seebach Reference Seebach2017). Interviewees’ talk exposes nuances in people’s shared conceptualisations of age and love, particularly regarding their gendered responsibilities for future care: financial, practical or otherwise. This highlights the endurance of a gendered double standard of ageing and care giving – even among older woman couplings, which are generally presumed to be more egalitarian (England and McClintock Reference England and McClintock2009; Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2021; Sontag Reference Sontag and Williams1979) – while raising some possibilities for the reformation of gendered power relations as couples age.
The article begins by outlining past literature on people’s cultural understandings of age, gender, ageing and care, and how gender relations are produced or reinforced in age-dissimilar couples. This leads to a focus on how age-dissimilar couples’ romantic love relationships have been previously theorised: as unequal or as reflecting free choice and equality. Next, there is an exploration of the article’s qualitative research methods and participants’ key characteristics. Following this, the article elaborates on key findings. First, it asks when and how interviewees discussed or (more commonly) avoided discussion about the potential impact of age differences on their futures together, and how this differed based on the gender of the older partner. Next, it shows how couples saw themselves and their relationships as exceptional, seeing one or both partners as youthful or mature (again in gendered ways) and employing definitions of age that moved beyond straightforward chronology. Finally, it explores how they imagined their futures and old age together, and particularly the possibility that one partner might care for the other. Here, concerns differed based on the gender of the older partner, reflecting a gendered double standard of care.
The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of findings in relation to academic debates about the individualisation of age, responsibility for ageing and ill-health, and the democratisation or enduring inequality of love. Ultimately, it asks how future relations of dependency, inheritance and care might emerge among age-dissimilar couples, with younger partners potentially taking on carer roles while also possibly inheriting or remarrying. It points to the social policy implications of rising age dissimilarities, as, in the context of ageing populations, some older people might draw on the care support of younger partners rather than utilising aged care services; meanwhile, younger partners might ultimately spend their final decades uncoupled and in need of care.
Gendered responsibility for age(ing) and care
One often-discussed challenge faced by age-dissimilar couples is the ageing of the older partner. Where the younger partner remains relatively youthful, they may therefore become responsible for their partner’s care. Here, it is crucial to understand the cultural meanings ascribed to age and ageing. Researchers across Europe and North America note that people regularly distinguish between the ages of their bodies and their selves, reflecting a mind–body dualism wherein the body is conceived of as subordinate (Featherstone Reference Featherstone, Featherstone and Wernick1995; Shilling Reference Shilling2003; Tulle-Winton Reference Tulle-Winton, Hancock, Hughes, Jagger, Paterson, Russell, Tulle-Winton and Tyler2000; Turner Reference Turner, Featherstone and Wernick1995). Rare qualitative research on age-dissimilar unions shows that people describe their and their partners’ ages in multiple ways: as chronological, felt and based on appearance, experience and personality (Leahy Reference Leahy1991; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2015; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999). Of interest here is the concept of maturity; in Terry Leahy’s (Reference Leahy1991) sociological research with Australian (largely lesbian and gay) couples in intergenerational sexual relationships, maturity was used to minimise age differences, yet this maturity was deemed exceptional. This meant that age dissimilarities were considered inappropriate for the majority, whose maturity and chronology matched.
Chronological and non-chronological definitions of age therefore coexist in people’s imaginings. In recent decades, the idea that people can reverse or deny physical ageing has become increasingly popular, yet chronological age remains culturally meaningful across the globe (Featherstone Reference Featherstone, Featherstone and Wernick1995; Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999; Turner Reference Turner, Featherstone and Wernick1995). Australia, for instance, has rigid chronologically based institutions and norms, and ages of schooling, sexual consent, drinking, marriage and retirement are strictly maintained. Age is often discussed in social terms, in relation to one’s peers. For someone to consider themselves younger or older than their chronological age, they must necessarily refer to shared notions of how an age looks or feels. Thus, age is understood collectively – through reference to one’s generation (Turner Reference Turner, Featherstone and Wernick1995) – as well as individually.
Within relationships, the apparent significance of age and ageing is highly gendered. Scholars have continually noted the presence of a gendered double standard of ageing in couple relationships, whereby women are penalised for ageing and men rewarded for it (England and McClintock Reference England and McClintock2009; Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2021; Sontag Reference Sontag and Williams1979). In a Finnish interview study of mid to late life women in older woman unions, for instance, Raisa Jurva (Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018: 137) found that, rather than feeling liberated and empowered by their age-dissimilar relationships, as is often presumed, women feared being ‘left without care’, anticipating vulnerability and neglect in their futures. Jurva (Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018) posited that, whereas age-dissimilar relationships can be experienced as emancipatory and egalitarian for some, this can shift as women age.
The durability of a gendered double standard of ageing is also evident in the rarity of older woman unions in comparison to older man ones. Such a double standard is understood to be reflected in partner preferences as well as actual age differences, with men generally being found to prefer younger women (Phua et al. Reference Phua, Sosa and Aloisi2018). Recent quantitative research into age differences shows that, in heterosexual couplings worldwide, men are an average of 4.2 years older (Pew Research Center 2019; see also Carmichael Reference Carmichael2011; Hu and Qian Reference Hu and Qian2019; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999). The extent of differences varies substantially across cultures,Footnote 1 yet average age differences have gradually been declining in the past several decades (Carmichael Reference Carmichael2011; Kolk Reference Kolk2015; Van de Putte et al. Reference Van de Putte, Van Poppel, Vanassche, Sanchez, Jidkova, Eeckhaut, Oris and Matthijs2009). Nonetheless, age dissimilarities are more common as people age and remarry, or where accompanied by differences in ethnicity, nationality and class (Choi and Cheung Reference Choi and Cheung2017; Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003; Hu and Qian Reference Hu and Qian2019; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999; Shafer Reference Shafer2013). The proportion of very large age and older woman differences is also increasing (Amato et al. Reference Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers2009; Australian Bureau of Statistics 1997, 2005, 2009, 2019; Coles and Francesconi Reference Coles and Francesconi2011; Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003). In light of these changes – and ageing populations worldwide – it is crucial to understand how age dissimilarities inform couples’ futures together.
Across the Global North, while ageing is more tolerated among men, old age is generally seen as undesirable: associated with illness, decline and dependency (Martin Reference Martin2001; Robbins-Ruszkowski Reference Robbins-Ruszkowski, Trnka and Trundle2017). Although old age – and the associated need for physical care – may be seen as inevitable and immutable, it is also conceived of as open to self-determination and delay, subject to ‘a cumulative process of lifelong behaviors’ (Robbins-Ruszkowski Reference Robbins-Ruszkowski, Trnka and Trundle2017: 200). People are responsibilised for their ageing and held accountable for illnesses, placing them ‘under growing pressure to formulate themselves as independent, self-managing, and self-empowered subjects’ (Trnka and Trundle Reference Trnka, Trundle, Trnka and Trundle2017: 2; see also Brown and Baker Reference Brown and Baker2012). Ostensibly empowering discourses, whereby people can be understood to shape and shift their individual ages, obscure tendencies to judge those experiencing age-related health issues as irresponsible (Brown and Baker Reference Brown and Baker2012).
Responsibilities related to ageing also arise at the interpersonal and state levels (Trnka and Trundle Reference Trnka, Trundle, Trnka and Trundle2017). Older people, while treated as responsible for their own health and care needs, are potentially cared for by partners and families deemed responsible for them, sometimes also receiving (often inadequate) state resources (Rose and Novas Reference Rose, Novas, Ong and Collier2008). As Jurva’s (Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018) work illustrates, interpersonal care from partners may be unevenly available to older men and women, and state resources may be accessed or not, depending on this. Such considerations of current or future care remain at the forefront of much recent social science on ageing and gender (Buch Reference Buch2015; Sontag Reference Sontag and Williams1979). Yet findings relating to age-dissimilar couples are sparse (see Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018). This article discusses care as both a resource and a relational practice (Buch Reference Buch2015), the circulation of which shifts throughout the lifecourse.
Age-dissimilar couples and democratising love
Examining future care can also provide insights into age-dissimilar couples’ understandings of love, as well as gendered (in)equalities in their relationships. Indeed, analyses of age dissimilarities are often centrally concerned with if and how they signify broader cultural changes (Amato et al. Reference Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers2009; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2015). Interpretations vary wildly. Some see these unions as heralding the growing irrelevance of chronological age (Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999), a view opposed by those who imagine age-dissimilar couples as facing unique, age-based problems like dissatisfaction, divorce, conflict, care and power inequalities, and ill-health (Carmichael Reference Carmichael2011; Drefahl Reference Drefahl2010; Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003; cf. Choi and Cheung Reference Choi and Cheung2017; Pyke and Adams Reference Pyke and Adams2010; Silva Reference Silva2019). Others claim that older man couplings are evidence of enduring gender inequalities (Carmichael Reference Carmichael2011; cf. Leahy Reference Leahy1991), whereas older woman unions are seen to imply a democratisation of relationships (Alarie Reference Alarie2019; Coles and Francesconi Reference Coles and Francesconi2011; Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018). Still others posit that age-dissimilar unions signify growing freedom of choice in love (Amato et al. Reference Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers2009; cf. Van Leeuwen and Maas Reference Van Leeuwen and Maas2002). These relationships, such arguments suggest, will not necessarily be long term owing to their unique challenges for couples. As such, investigations into such couples’ futures remain sparse (compare with Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018).
Theorists of love more broadly also seek to comprehend how relationships’ futures, and the gendered relations underpinning them, are changing. Sociologists like Eva Illouz (Reference Illouz2007, Reference Illouz2021) conceive of intimacies as increasingly ‘cold’ and ‘unloving’, with future commitment and care overlooked in favour of easily severed relations (see also Bauman Reference Bauman2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim Reference Beck and Beck-Gernsheim1995), while Anthony Giddens (Reference Giddens1992) imagines love as becoming more equal yet autonomous. More recent scholarship addresses the complications and contradictions of choice, commitment, care and gender equality in contemporary love relationships, adding nuance to earlier works (Carter and Arocha Reference Carter, Arocha, Carter and Arocha2020; Seebach Reference Seebach2017).
Anthropological approaches, which remain somewhat rare (Jankowiak and Paladino Reference Jankowiak, Paladino and Jankowiak2008; Lindholm Reference Lindholm2006; Venkatesan et al. Reference Venkatesan, Edwards, Willerslev, Povinelli and Mody2011), contest the meaning of love. William Jankowiak and Thomas Paladino (Reference Jankowiak, Paladino and Jankowiak2008) describe it as a near-universal relation that is presumed to last sometime into the future, in contrast to transient sexual desire. Others argue that it is primarily characterised by transcendence: allowing partners to move beyond what is considered normal and tangible and render apparently physical differences like age irrelevant, now and in the future (Lindholm Reference Lindholm2006). These theorisations are highly useful in exploring shared understandings of future love, care, gender and age among age-dissimilar couples (Lindholm Reference Lindholm2006).
Methods
The data discussed here are from 24 semi-structured interviews in Perth, Western Australia, carried out from 2007 to 2012 as part of a project on age-dissimilar couples, along with focus groups, surveys and media analysis. The project, entitled Ideologies and practices of men and women in inter-generational romantic relationships, received ethics approval from the University of Western Australia’s Human Research Ethics Committee (RA/4/1/1926). Interviews were face-to-face, with people who were currently or previously in heterosexual, age-dissimilar unions. Interviewees were married or unmarried, in short- or long-term relationships, and living together or apart. They had been in age-dissimilar relationships for between two-and-a-half months and 29 years.
Interviews were with 11 men and 13 women, nine in older woman and 15 in older man relationships. This did not include men and women in gay and lesbian relationships, as, at the time of the data collection, no qualitative research had focused on heterosexual, age-dissimilar couples in Australia, whereas one study had focused on gay and lesbian relationships (Leahy Reference Leahy1991). Interviewees were between 22 and 76 years old, and from a variety of cultural, ethnic and class backgrounds. The sample, although not representative of the broad population in Australia, offered insights into shared understandings of age(ing), gender and love. Focusing on these ‘unusual’ relationships highlighted how love is imagined as potentially democratising, bypassing or transcending boundaries or differences; how age(ing) is conceived of as a self-responsibility; and how responsibility for ageing and care is gendered.
Recruitment was carried out in a variety of ways: through acquaintances, snowball sampling, magazines, radio, online forums and paper flyers. Rather than designating a particular age difference as significant, participants self-identified as age-dissimilar. Interviewees had age differences of between seven and 30 years, with the smallest differences being in older woman couplings or older man couplings that had begun when the woman was very young. Larger age differences were far more common in older man couplings. It was common for couples to remain unmarried or to live apart, even in very long-term relationships. The ages of interviewees and their partners, their gender identities and their relationship types and lengths are catalogued in Table 1.
Interviewee details and relationshipsa
a Refers to the age-dissimilar relationship under discussion during the interview.
There was some difficulty recruiting participants with large age differences, particularly where the older partner was female, so some flexibility in methods was necessary. While interviews were sought with both partners, this was not always possible. In some cases, relationships had ended and partners were no longer in touch, partners lived overseas or interstate, or one partner was unwilling to participate. Where both partners participated, they could decide whether they wanted to be interviewed separately or together, favouring interviewees feeling comfortable over methodological consistency. For the most part, partners chose to be interviewed together (that is, three of the four couples where both people were interviewed). While this small number of couples does not allow for any conclusions to be drawn regarding the impact on interviewees’ accounts, those who chose to be interviewed together tended to be earlier on in their relationships and express more positive views on their unions. Unsurprisingly, they also tended to bypass discussions of gendered power in their relationships, often deploying strategies like joking. Each interview lasted between one and three hours. Extensive notes were taken in interviews and recordings were transcribed, with pseudonyms assigned to participants. Throughout this article, identifying or sensitive details, such as people’s locations, are omitted.
Interview questions explored interviewees’ backgrounds, previous relationships and experiences of their current or recent age-dissimilar unions. This included stories about how they had met, their day-to-day relationships, interactions with family and friends, and gendered power dynamics. Questions explicitly asked interviewees how they felt about their power relations with partners, now and in the past, and they also discussed power in their responses to other questions (for instance, when asked about friends and family members’ reactions to their age-dissimilar unions, they often spoke about others’ perceptions versus the realities of gendered power in their relationships). Thematic analysis of interviewees’ accounts developed deductive codes. These arose from research questions about definitions of age, as well as their experiences and conceptions of ageing, love and the future of their relationships (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane Reference Fereday and Muir-Cochrane2006). This allowed the analysis to make sense of interviewees’ shared understandings and practices. Following this, further themes were developed inductively, via a reflexive and iterative analysis. This developed this article’s focus on talk of old age, illness, gender and actual or hypothetical relations of care, drawing attention to where these themes intersected. Transcripts were examined in their entirety rather than using keywords or coded data to find relevant passages. This enabled fully contextualised interviewee accounts. Coding of data was undertaken with feedback and checking from two other anthropologists, without the use of computer software.
The research that informs this article was undertaken some time ago: couples’ circumstances may have changed or public views on their relationships shifted. Yet age-dissimilar couples remain understudied by qualitative researchers, and subject to ongoing public interest and debate. Moreover, as described already, examining the perspectives of ‘unusual’ couples offers valuable insights into all relationships, as partners regularly need to explain (and thus reflect on) their relationships in relation to the age-similar norm, making cultural understandings about love, age, care and gender more explicit. Findings therefore remain useful in advancing concepts such as democratisation, responsibility and gendered double standards of ageing and care, furthering arguments made in recent works on these topics (Carter and Arocha Reference Carter, Arocha, Carter and Arocha2020; Seebach Reference Seebach2017). These works seek to complicate the original theorisations of sociologists in the 1990s and early 2000s. In particular, this article shows that tensions in understandings about age, gender and love became evident through interviewees’ discussions about the future: love could transcend difference and democratise relations, or not, depending on factors like interviewees’ ages and genders. Finally, considerations of ageing and care have become, if anything, more urgent since this research was first undertaken (Buch Reference Buch2015), as populations age across much of the Global North. Here, this article has the potential to further expose how couples negotiate responsibilities for future financial, practical and other forms of care in gendered ways.
(Not) talking about the future and gendered age(ing)
In interviews, it was rare for people to discuss the impact of age differences and ageing on their relationships, current or future, even when asked directly. This was particularly the case where old age appeared a distant reality – such as among middle-aged or younger people – whereas those closer to old age – where one partner caring for another appeared a not-too-distant possibility – spoke slightly more on the topic. This might be for many reasons: interviewees may have been disinclined to speak openly of their anxieties about ageing with a relative stranger, may not have considered the future or discussed it with their partners, or may have felt uncomfortable thinking about future (potentially unequal) relations.
Juliette, a 76-year-old who was in a relationship with 58-year-old Arthur, initially appeared to dismiss the very concept of age. Juliette sat in her dining room as she drank cup after cup of tea throughout her interview. Juliette and Arthur had met in the late 1970s after she moved to Perth from elsewhere in Australia. After a two-year friendship, they had begun dating and had been together for 28 years at the time of the interview. Juliette and Arthur lived in separate houses in nearby suburbs and were not married. Although there was an 18-year age difference between them, Juliette told me that they had been unaware of the extent of the gap for several years: she had looked young for her age and he had looked old. When asked if her understandings of age differences had changed over her lifetime, she said:
I think it’s become more open. I don’t know whether that’s because women are more willing to admit their ages. And frequently when it’s a relationship that’s been reported in the media, her age is given. Whereas, god you wouldn’t do that before. Um, so I think it’s a broader thing than a relationship, I think it’s more that age doesn’t matter … There’s no barriers anymore, based on age.
Juliette’s sentiment was echoed by other interviewees, who likewise informed me that ‘age is just a number’. Yet Juliette’s case was especially interesting as she and her partner had gone for a long period without knowing each other’s chronological ages. Juliette had purposely obscured her age, proposing that ‘age doesn’t matter’ anymore. Her account thus highlighted some of the tensions in interviewees’ conceptions of age: age was unimportant, but increasingly known and accepted. It also revealed how her experience was generational and gendered: Juliette spoke about how expectations around age and gender had changed since she met Arthur, when older woman relationships were far less accepted (and a gendered double standard of ageing more apparent). This was reflected in her actions and experiences at the time; for instance, Juliette related an incident when she and Arthur had been visiting her family, and he had learnt of her age:
When we first started to go [pause] in a relationship we knew before that I was older, he was younger, but it was in hindsight it turned out that there was a great difference. I thought he was older than he was and he thought I was younger than I am. But it was his birthday that we first got together, so I knew exactly how old he was. I thought, ‘oh ye gods!’ [laughs]. So, for about two years – he was 29 and I was 48 at the time. Forty-seven, 48, I can’t remember the exact months. And we were staying at my foster mother’s place for a holiday and she said … ‘it’s your birthday next month isn’t it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You’ll be 50!’ And I looked at him. He was sitting across the table, oh, I could have whacked her off the chair [laughs]. I thought, you know, I wanted to say something all these couple of years.
Juliette’s account highlights a recurring theme in interviews. She began, like others, by emphasising the meaninglessness of chronological age. This was a common discourse in interviewees’ talk about their futures. Juliette’s tale was unique, however, as she had obscured her chronological age from her partner, and he had done the same. Juliette informed me that their age difference was now the stuff of jokes, with him telling her ‘you’re getting old and senile’ when she forgot things, and she telling him to ‘wait until you’re older’ when he complained about ageing. Humour – which anthropologist Susanna Trnka (Reference Trnka2011: 339) describes as expressing repressed ideas – appeared to be one way that the couple discussed ageing. Moreover, Juliette and Arthur’s hidden age difference suggested some anxieties about their age difference, at least when they had met.
Other interviewees sometimes took a fatalistic approach to ageing in their relationships, saying that ‘it isn’t worth thinking about’ and ‘what will be, will be’. They gestured to the future’s uncertainties. The older partner could outlive their younger counterpart – due to exceptional youthfulness, health or plain good luck – and therefore any unevenness in ageing did not warrant consideration. This discourse was prevalent where the older partner remained in good health, or where they were male and thus benefited from cultural expectations that they might be physically cared for by their female partner in old age (Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018). An interview with Alan, a 61-year-old man married to 31-year-old Gloria, illustrated this point. Alan was interviewed in a local park as his two children played on the nearby swings, with the discussion occasionally interrupted by them.
In describing their relationship, he said that he was focused on the present, not the future. He and Gloria had met when they were both working in Singapore, and three years ago Gloria (who had grown up in the Philippines) had moved to Australia to be with Alan. She had a son by a previous husband, and she and Alan now had a daughter. Reflecting on their shared futures, Alan said that ‘now is not a problem’. He and Gloria had tried not to think about their ageing, but other couples likewise rarely thought about what their relationships would look like in the coming decades. Yet, when prompted further, Alan did speak about their future – particularly in relation to gendered care – a point explored further later.
Alan and other interviewees often talked about love as ‘in the here and now’. This, combined with their silence about the future, might be seen to support theorists who envision cultural ideals of love as increasingly contractual and temporary (Bauman Reference Bauman2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim Reference Beck and Beck-Gernsheim1995; Giddens Reference Giddens1992; Illouz Reference Illouz2007, Reference Illouz2021). However, where they remained with their partners, interviewees presumed that they would have futures together (Jankowiak and Paladino Reference Jankowiak, Paladino and Jankowiak2008; Quinn Reference Quinn2005). The way – and the extent to which – they talked about their futures clearly depended on multiple factors: their genders, positions in the lifecourse and generational experiences. Juliette, for instance, saw relationships with age differences as increasingly acceptable (especially older woman ones that were previously highly subject to gendered double standards of ageing). She and other interviewees saw love as transcending or ignoring differences like age (Lindholm Reference Lindholm2006; McKenzie Reference McKenzie, Carter and Arocha2020; Quinn Reference Quinn1996). It is these conceptualisations that will be examined next.
Being exceptional
One way that people sought to transcend or ignore social differences in their relationships was through discourse that minimised the significance of age, including by denying the ongoing relevance of gendered double standards of ageing and care. They did this by referencing the multiple definitions and relativity of age and ageing, as the studies discussed earlier – exploring age in relation to chronology, appearance, experience, personality and feeling – have shown (Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003; Leahy Reference Leahy1991; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2015; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999; Tulle-Winton Reference Tulle-Winton, Hancock, Hughes, Jagger, Paterson, Russell, Tulle-Winton and Tyler2000). For older partners, interviewees said that they felt young, looked young, had the life experiences of someone much younger or had youthful or ‘immature’ personalities. Younger partners were framed as looking, acting or (less often) feeling older, or as having experienced difficulties in life leading to greater-than-average maturity levels. These different ‘types’ of age overlapped heavily: personality and experience informed one another, as did appearance and felt age. They were also clearly gendered: what counted as ‘old’ was different for men and women.
Interviewees framed themselves and their partners as exceptional, but did so to define themselves as being like age-similar couples and unlike other age-dissimilar ones. For most people, it was assumed that one’s true age and chronology were similar, and therefore age-similar relationships were appropriate. For those who were remarkably mature or youthful, age-dissimilar relationships were suitable, even desirable. This was most noticeable when it came to felt age. For those in relationships with older partners, for instance, ‘healthy’ and ‘youthful’ partners were compared to ‘frail’ and ‘decrepit’ contemporaries. One interviewee, Monica, provided a clear example. Monica was 52 years old at the time of her interview and married to 72-year-old Sam. They had been together for 23 years. Both had grown up in Australia, and they were married and had a child together. Until recently, they had lived together in a regional city, but Monica had since moved to Perth to pursue a new career. Sam had remained in their hometown, although he visited her regularly.
Monica’s interview was at a café near her Perth home. She remarked that Sam was a ‘younger older person’ who remained physically and mentally capable: that his ‘mental age and physical capabilities are younger’. When asked whether she thought age was important in relationships, Monica responded by talking about others who were Sam’s age: ‘I look at them and I think “oh god!” you know, like [they are] so decrepit. Both men and women. I think they’re so bloody old! … But of course the theory is as well, if you’re with someone younger, a man is with a younger woman, they’re always [staying] younger.’
Monica considered age to be relative and subject to change, for her husband at least. Yet she maintained a chronologically anchored conception of advanced age for other older people, with ageing characterised by self-responsibility for decrepitude and illness. She also emphasised gender: how older men like Sam were apparently ‘kept young’ by their partners. This served to highlight the enduring importance of gendered ageing in love relationships, and how men might thwart old age through relationships with younger women.
Others talked in similar terms, favourably comparing partners to their chronological contemporaries. This was clear in the case of Suzie and Peter. Suzie, 35, and Peter, 51, were interviewed together. Both had grown up in Australia, and the couple had met while working at the same school and married to other people. Their then-marriages had been age-similar, and they described them as full of friction and disagreement, in stark contrast to their ‘easy’ relationship. Suzie said that it had been clear that they were attracted to one another from the start. She said that ‘when I met Peter it was just an instant, just a kindred spirit. So, it was very hard to avoid and deny.’ The pair had begun an affair, left their partners and been together for seven months at the time of the interview.
Suzie spoke about her relationship with Peter’s friends, bluntly stating that they were not ‘fuddy-duddies’ but were ‘young at heart’. She explained that while they were not at an age where they would be ‘hitting the clubs’ and staying out all night, she was not interested in doing this either, given that she had three children. Although Peter and his friends were deemed youthful – and Suzie mature – Suzie implied that Peter’s chronological contemporaries were ‘old’. Such claims were common. Couples talked about how old they ‘felt’ compared to their older chronological ages.
‘Felt age’ took on a special significance when couples looked very age-dissimilar, such as Suzie and Peter. The pair were acutely aware of their visible age difference, noting that Peter’s hair was completely grey. Suzie and Peter’s interview was in a very busy café, and when meeting them (knowing only their names) it was clear that they were the couple there to be interviewed. Following introductions, they immediately began joking that they must have been easy to spot, given their wildly different appearances. They later spoke about others’ reactions to their differences.
Suzie: Well I’ve noticed we get a few stares.
Peter: We do, I mean you can’t help [but] miss [the fact] that I’ve got grey hair.
Suzie: Or, as [my son] says, white hair.
Peter: White hair, yeah [laughs]. Um, but at the same time I’ve never been one to ever dye my hair and I never will do … I don’t feel my age [Suzie interjects].
Suzie: I’ve got more creaks than he does. In fact, he doesn’t have any creaks whatsoever. I bend over and it’s ‘click, click, click, click, click’. Yeah, and he doesn’t, so it’s quite uncanny really.
Suzie said that Peter’s appearance and chronological age did not align with his ‘true’ age. This was reflected in his superior physical wellbeing, youthful personality and felt age. Peter argued that how old one felt was malleable and self-determined, rather than being a product of ‘luck, circumstance or biology’, like his grey hair. He commented that people who wanted to feel old were free to do so, but he instead chose to do the things they enjoyed.
Peter exclaimed that his appearance and felt age were easily alterable. He said that this was possible through technology (dying his hair) or personal responsibility (choosing not to feel old). As a result, he suggested, he was ‘young for his age’. Such judgements are apparently common. Eileen Fairhurst (Reference Fairhurst, Nettleton and Watson1998), who carried out research with middle-aged people in northern England, found that people privilege felt age and other understandings of age over chronology, and that this becomes increasingly common as they enter middle or old age (see also McKenzie Reference McKenzie2015; Tulle-Winton Reference Tulle-Winton, Hancock, Hughes, Jagger, Paterson, Russell, Tulle-Winton and Tyler2000). One interviewee informed her, ‘you reach a stage when you don’t grow any older inside … you’re perpetually 28 or something … whenever you stop’ (Fairhurst Reference Fairhurst, Nettleton and Watson1998: 269). Here, the kinds of age that were (de)valued were gendered. Suzie and Peter de-emphasised the importance of Peter’s appearance of age as well as his chronology, suggesting that other forms of age took precedence. This lay in contrast to Juliette’s account earlier, where she highlighted how she had appeared youthful when her relationship began. This adds complexity to the straightforward discourse of a gendered double standard of ageing. According to interviewees, some forms of ageing can be tolerated among both men and women (chronological ageing, for instance), while others might be highly gendered (like appearance).
Monica, Peter and Suzie all considered themselves or their partners to be exceptional (albeit exceptional within the constraints of gendered ageing). They argued that chronological age was meaningless to them, suggesting that the older partners in their relationships were actually younger than their chronological contemporaries. In doing so, they relied on commonly held ideas about what ‘older’ men and women were like: their appearance, experiences, personality, interests and how old they presented as and felt. Interviewees consistently noted their similarity to age-similar couples. Indeed, interviewees tended to presume that good relationships were based on similarity – including age similarity – provided that ‘age’ took into account men’s and women’s exceptional maturity or youthfulness. Relationships that transcended gendered age norms were thus deemed possible but not commonplace (Lindholm Reference Lindholm2006). Interviewees imagined age to be self-determined, moderated through individual attitudes and behaviours, as other scholars have likewise uncovered (Robbins-Ruszkowski Reference Robbins-Ruszkowski, Trnka and Trundle2017). They and others were responsibilised for their ageing: those who became ill because of old age were accountable for this.
Old age and future care
Most interviewees remained relatively silent on issues of ageing, and conversations about the impact of ageing on their unions were often accompanied by nervous laughter or an insistence that age was meaningless. One reason for this may have been that they challenged interviewees’ claims of the meaninglessness, changeability and personal responsibility for age, re-establishing the centrality of chronological age. This logic had its limits, however. Older interviewees tended to talk in greater depth about old age, and it was apparent that ageing had challenged their ability or willingness to disconnect age from chronology (compare with Kavedžija Reference Kavedžija2016). Seventy-six-year-old Juliette, for instance, whose relationship with 58-year old Arthur was discussed earlier, said that she had always ‘looked young’ but had recently entered ‘old age’ and begun to look older than her partner. She expressed disquiet that Arthur was now often mistaken for her son. Juliette highlighted the limits of many interviewees’ conceptions of age: as self-determined, individualised, responsibilised and relative.
Interviewees like Juliette expressed concern over whether older partners might die or reach old age significantly earlier than younger ones. Older partners worried that they may need to be cared for by their spouses, that they could die or enter old age before their children were grown or that they would be unable to financially support their families. Those in relationships with older partners sometimes commented on partners’ lack of fitness or their ‘aches and pains’, as well as potential (gendered) responsibility for their future care (with younger women generally held responsible for physical care and older men financial care, and those in older woman relationships being less assured of or comfortable receiving such forms of care).
In a moment of candour regarding the ageing process, Juliette intimated her discomfort at receiving physical care. She reflected on the death of her younger sister and a recent bout of ill-health that had led to her hospitalisation. These incidents, she said, had changed her relationship with Arthur, who now visited her daily. It was apparent to Juliette that Arthur had begun to feel concerned about her health, and now felt the need to check ‘to see if he’s got to scrape me up off the floor’. Juliette said they had not discussed this transformation of their relationship, or the impact ageing had on them as a couple, aside from the occasional casual joke. She was clearly uncomfortable with it, however, and said she worried that she would need to be physically cared for by Arthur. These concerns were in many ways gendered, and Juliette repeatedly spoke about her fear that she would take on the role of Arthur’s ‘mother’ due to her age and (future likely) care needs.
Others likewise considered the influence of old age on their future relationships. Alan had the largest age difference of the interviewees – 30 years – and he also reflected on his future ageing the most. As outlined earlier, he initially said that he and his wife, Gloria, were not focused on the future as their age difference was not currently a problem. Yet, later, Alan discussed ageing at great length. He talked about his possible physical and mental decline over the next decade, raising the possibility that Gloria might become his carer. He asked, ‘What’s going to happen when I’m 71 and my wife is only 41?’ Alan considered what would happen when he retired or lost his health or when Gloria might need to care for him ‘in a medical sense’.
Suzie, also discussed earlier, made similar comments, saying that ‘age will catch up with all of us at some point’. When asked about the significance of age in relationships, she said:
It’s something you can’t ignore, and I think you’d be stupid to not consider and look into the future and think ‘can I handle that?’ But I think to myself ‘well you know I could walk away from Peter now, and ten years down the track, still be on my own thinking that’s ten years I’ve just wasted without being with him’, you know? … So, you know, that’s life.
Returning to Alan, he also raised the problems he faced as an older father. He asked, ‘Will I be around to see my daughter’s 21st [birthday]?’ He was similarly concerned about his ability to provide financially, saying that his plan to retire within the next few years would make it difficult for him to support his young family. Yet, he added, Gloria was still far more financially secure than when they met. Unlike Juliette, Alan expressed less discomfort at the prospect of being physically cared for by his partner, and was more concerned with being unable to financially care for his family.
For the most part, interviewees took for granted that relationships would be long lasting, regardless of future care needs. When discussing his thoughts on Gloria’s future, Alan suggested that she would physically care for him if necessary, although she might find another partner after his death, saying, ‘you can’t leave it too long’. His expectations were gendered in that he generally took physical care from his partner for granted, thus expressing a gendered double standard of ageing and care. Others, like 72-year-old Michael, had had their long-term relationships recently end, which they attributed to their ageing. Michael, who had been with 52-year-old Lily for over a decade before she had ended things, described their parting as the result of him having reached old age while she remained relatively youthful. He expressed shock and hurt at having been ‘left’. Some other men voiced similar anxieties about future ageing (Kavedžija Reference Kavedžija2016), largely through joking, but most ultimately took their future physical care for granted. Alan, for instance, laughed that Gloria would soon ‘have his money’ and could then replace him with a younger partner. Women in relationships with younger men were generally far less confident of and comfortable receiving future physical care from partners, however, and none raised the possibility of providing financial resources to their younger male partners.
Women and men thus faced unique age-based insecurities as they entered old age. As outlined already, Jurva’s (Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018: 137) Finnish interview study of mid to late life women in older woman relationships uncovered women’s fears of being uncared for by partners in their future old age. Rather than understanding their age-dissimilar couplings as ‘emancipatory’, they saw ageing as potentially resulting in vulnerability and neglect (Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018). This was made clear by 52-year-old Alana, who had been with her 66-year-old partner, Greg, for 29 years when she was interviewed. Alana said that older man relationships such as hers were less problematic than older woman ones. She related a story about an age-similar couple she knew who had divorced. The woman ‘looked older’ – despite the fact that she was not – while her husband was extremely handsome and young-looking. She reflected that, because of this, their separation ‘almost wasn’t a surprise’. Alana suggested that the appearance of age dissimilarity could be more challenging for women than actual chronological difference. Corresponding to this, and as outlined earlier, interviewees in older woman relationships often made a point of mentioning female partners’ youthful appearance, while men’s appearance was far less often emphasised (as is typical of a double standard of ageing). Even Juliette, who said she had recently begun to ‘look old’, heavily emphasised her earlier, youthful appearance.
Pertinent here is Susanna Trnka and Catherine Trundle’s (Reference Trnka, Trundle, Trnka and Trundle2017) investigation of care and responsibility. They argue that, as a counterpoint to the self-responsibility for ageing outlined already, care for dependent ageing others remains a gendered social obligation (Trnka and Trundle Reference Trnka, Trundle, Trnka and Trundle2017: 3). Access to care via one’s relations is thus accessible to some, while others rely on (largely inadequate) state care (Rose and Novas Reference Rose, Novas, Ong and Collier2008). ‘Obligations and ties enacted through relations of care’, Trnka and Trundle (Reference Trnka, Trundle, Trnka and Trundle2017: 11) posit, ‘constitute a fundamental, if currently often understated, form of responsibility.’ These caring responsibilities are by no means equal and sometimes go unfulfilled. It was clear that interviewees felt gendered responsibility to care for or be cared for by their partners, anchored in expectations that their love relations would be long lasting. Those that experienced breaches of future care – especially men like Michael – were therefore shocked when this occurred. Moreover, cases like Juliette’s point to some democratising possibilities regarding care in older woman relationships: despite her discomfort, Arthur was engaging in physical rather than financial care.
Discussion: ignoring, imagining and contesting gendered future ageing
This article explores ideals of gender, care, age and love, as expressed by age-dissimilar couples when talking about their imagined futures. Interviewees discussed the role of gendered ageing in their (future) relationships to varying extents, with younger people tending to avoid the topic and older people reflecting on recent or anticipated changes to their love lives. Men and women regularly proclaimed the meaninglessness of age in their relationships (albeit in ways that reflected a gendered double standard of ageing), even as they insisted on its relevance to others’ unions. They hid their ages from one another or sought to dismiss ageing through jokes. Others took a fatalistic approach or avoided talking (and perhaps thinking) about ageing, embracing the uncertainties of their futures together. Their focus, they said, was on the present.
Interviewees also sought to minimise their age differences by framing age as a relative concept. Their logic was as follows: their relationship had an ‘acceptable’ chronological age difference because either they or their partners were exceptionally youthful or mature. Youth and maturity were discussed in terms of appearance, personality, experiences and how old one felt. The importance attributed to each of these types of age varied greatly: for instance, the appearance of youth was far more important when the older partner was a woman. Regardless, they saw their relationships as exceptional yet normal, different from other age-dissimilar couples and similar to age-similar ones. This not only established interviewees as exceptional but also meant that age could be malleable and subject to self-determination. One outcome of this was that people – including interviewees’ peers – were responsibilised for their ageing and ill-health.
Yet when the topic of old age was broached, the significance of chronological age re-emerged. As Alan said, age could be ignored and deemed irrelevant early on in one’s courtship, yet its stark realities later became apparent. Depending on their genders, older interviewees had concerns around needing care or not being able to care for others financially, physically or otherwise, reflecting a gendered double standard of care. For the most part, however, they were able to ignore ageing in their relationships, as few considered themselves to be entering or have entered old age.
While the interviews that inform this analysis were undertaken between 2007 and 2012, and interviewees’ circumstances and public sentiment may have changed somewhat since then, the findings remain pertinent to the broader theorisations of love, age, gender, ageing and care that are the focus of this article. For instance, many social scientific works highlight the individualisation of age, facilitated by technological, medical and cosmetic advances (Hancock et al. Reference Hancock, Stuchbury and Tomassini2003; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999). Interviewees’ talk aligned with these ideas as they argued that their ages were malleable and self-determined (Featherstone Reference Featherstone, Featherstone and Wernick1995; Shilling Reference Shilling2003; Turner Reference Turner, Featherstone and Wernick1995). Those unable to alter their ages were responsibilised for their illnesses, disabilities, declines and dependencies (Featherstone Reference Featherstone, Featherstone and Wernick1995; Robbins-Ruszkowski Reference Robbins-Ruszkowski, Trnka and Trundle2017). Interviewees suggested that there were different kinds of age and ageing (Featherstone Reference Featherstone, Featherstone and Wernick1995; Shilling Reference Shilling2003). They reflected that their true ages were not their chronological ones (Leahy Reference Leahy1991; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2015; Otta et al. Reference Otta, Queiroz, Campos, da Silva and Silveira1999). This mirrors previous studies of age-dissimilar couples and people in middle age and older (Fairhurst Reference Fairhurst, Nettleton and Watson1998; Leahy Reference Leahy1991; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2015; Tulle-Winton Reference Tulle-Winton, Hancock, Hughes, Jagger, Paterson, Russell, Tulle-Winton and Tyler2000), which find that people often frame themselves as exceptionally youthful or mature. Being in an age-dissimilar relationship arguably made it easier to make such claims, as couples were demonstrably unusual. Although they imagined their ages to be self-determined, however, age took on meaning only through comparison to others (Turner Reference Turner, Featherstone and Wernick1995).
Moves towards age dissimilarity in couple relationships, particularly where the woman is older, are often seen as evidencing less restrictive attitudes to age and relationships, that is, a shift to democratisation (Amato et al. Reference Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers2009). Here, growing age dissimilarities are understood as the outcome of a greater choice of partners (Van Leeuwen and Maas Reference Van Leeuwen and Maas2002). For interviewees (but not their less unique peers), love transcended outward differences, aligning with Charles Lindholm’s (Reference Lindholm2006) interpretation of love as moving beyond material boundaries and concerns: gender, age and so on. Their accounts rested on the notion that love should not be future-oriented; rather, it should be focused on the here and now, but with the ultimate goal of continuing indefinitely. Love was thus seen to sometimes transcend ‘superficial’ differences like age and gender, sometimes not; it was oriented towards the present but had a future.
This was demonstrated by the fact that older interviewees foresaw being cared for by their younger partners. Despite expressing some gendered anxieties about their futures, couples regularly assumed lasting relations in old age, imagining that partners would most likely care for them – or they would care for partners – in gender-dependent ways. When this did not occur, they were shocked. For them, care was a responsibility (Trnka and Trundle Reference Trnka, Trundle, Trnka and Trundle2017). Yet anthropologists Trnka and Trundle (Reference Trnka, Trundle, Trnka and Trundle2017) emphasise that these caring relations are not equal, as illustrated by Alana who suggested that women could be abandoned for looking older than their partners, even when they were not (see also Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018). ‘Looking young’ was often seen as crucial for women to be counted as ‘young for their age’, whereas appearance was often trivialised for men, as in the case of Peter’s ‘white hair’. Interviewees imagined lasting rather than short-term relationships for older women by emphasising that these women appeared young or had done so for the bulk of their relationships. Yet this logic of relative, individualised, responsibilised age also meant that, if partners were no longer exceptionally youthful or mature, relationship breakdown was potentially justifiable (although certainly not inevitable, as in Juliette’s case). The meanings of youthfulness and maturity thus varied depending on one’s gender, with a greater degree of security afforded to men (but not ensured).
These understandings of future care contradict claims made by many contemporary sociologists that couple relationships are now more ‘cold’, ‘unloving’ and short term than ever (Bauman Reference Bauman2003; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim Reference Beck and Beck-Gernsheim1995; Carter and Arocha Reference Carter, Arocha, Carter and Arocha2020; Giddens Reference Giddens1992; Illouz Reference Illouz2007; Reference Illouz2021). Prominent scholars like Eva Illouz (Reference Illouz2007, Reference Illouz2021) decry a lack of commitment in modern relationships in the Global North and herald the rise of ‘unloving’ relations characterised by practices of non-choice and withdrawal, while those such as Anthony Giddens (Reference Giddens1992) celebrate moves to contractual, autonomous and democratised love (see also Amato et al. Reference Amato, Booth, Johnson and Rogers2009; England and McClintock Reference England and McClintock2009; Jurva Reference Jurva, Juvonen and Kolehmainen2018; McKenzie Reference McKenzie2021; Sontag Reference Sontag and Williams1979). More recent sociological accounts highlight how shifting power relations and technologies like dating apps complicate choice and commitment, making relationships both more egoistic and more collective (Carter and Arocha Reference Carter, Arocha, Carter and Arocha2020; Seebach Reference Seebach2017). Although age-dissimilar couples are often seen as typifying shifts to individualised, equal, temporary relations, interviewees’ accounts challenged these claims, instead supporting an understanding of age-dissimilar love as transcendent yet focused on the present (Lindholm Reference Lindholm2006). Interviewees conceived of love as overriding difference, in the present and the future, with some limits based on how ‘exceptional’ partners were (within gendered bounds). Their relationships were acceptable because they were uniquely mature or youthful for their (chronological) ages, unlike most age-dissimilar couples.
The implications of these findings – for these couples and others – are worthy of greater exploration. Future research might ask whether couples’ notions that their relationships transcend age reflect broader shifts in cultural attitudes and a reconfiguration of gendered double standards of ageing and care, or whether these couples are simply doing love relationships differently (as might be suggested by the fact that a relatively large proportion of the long-term couples were also unmarried and living apart). Relationships with large age differences – which, as discussed earlier, are increasingly commonplace – have the potential to reform gendered power relations as couples age, with older partners gaining more financial power and entering retirement earlier, and younger ones remaining employed and in good health longer. This might alter future relations of dependency, inheritance and care, as older partners come to depend physically on younger ones and younger partners inherit and remarry, depending on their perceived (and gendered) desirability. This may have social policy and gender equity implications, as some partners might support one another – financially and practically – without drawing on public services, while others might spend decades uncoupled while in need of care.
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks to those who participated in this research, for their candour in discussing their relationships. I am extremely grateful to those who provided feedback on this manuscript, including the generous peer reviewers for this journal. Thanks also to those who attended and participated in the panel ‘Breaking the norms of ageing – practices and materialities of queering age and ageing’ at the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) Conference 2021, in Helsinki and online, where I presented an early version of this article.
Statement of funding
The author declares no funding.
Competing of interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
Ethical standards
This study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Western Australia (RA/4/1/1926).
