Age-Gap Relationships Are Having a Moment: DU Professor Weighs In

This summer, Leonardo DiCaprio made celebrity news when his current girlfriend, an Italian model, turned 26 years old—marking the first time the 49-year-old actor, who is known for dating younger women, has been in a relationship with someone older than 25.

Leo’s dating history is nothing new in Hollywood: For decades, movies have featured young actresses and older actors playing people who are or become romantically involved. These age gaps can range from several years to several decades. It’s also not unusual off-screen. 

A 2022 Ipsos poll found that nearly 40% of Americans have engaged in age-gap dating, with men more likely to be the ones dating a younger partner.

Why is this? DU psychology professor Galena Rhoades says, “My sense is that there are different ideals for men and women about what makes someone attractive, and that because of that, that kind of age gap where it's an older man and a younger woman is more common and acceptable.”

The phenomenon is exacerbated by fame, Rhoades adds, which is why we see so many male celebrities, in particular, dating—and marrying—significantly younger women.

“Famous men are in a position where they have high status, high success, high wealth,” she says. “They have all of the things that fit that ideal of success for men, and so there’s more availability for them.”

But this year also saw a role reversal, with the release of several movies—like “The Idea of You” on Amazon Prime, Netflix’s “A Family Affair,” with Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron and, most recently, “Lonely Planet,” featuring Laura Dern and Chris Hemsworth, who have a 23-year age gap.

Rhoades says the more untraditional age-gap relationships of older women dating younger men are becoming more normalized, in and outside of Hollywood.

“We're seeing so much variation in terms of how relationships are defined, you know, who's involved in relationships,” she says. “I think we are going to see more and more age-gap relationships because of a greater sense of acceptability of different relationships and different relationship sizes and shapes,” she says.

Regardless of who is engaging in age-gap relationships, Rhoades says, there are certain challenges that come with dating someone much older or younger.

“There's no reason to think that an age-gap relationship would mean that two people don't share the same core values—and that's really important in relationships succeeding, that people share the same core values,” she says. "But where people may differ is that they may have different expectations for things that are fairly minor in a way, like, ‘How do we communicate? How much do we text? How much time do we spend with friends?’ Things that could be sort of generational differences, but not necessarily reflective of differences in core values.”

These problems and challenges become less important as the ages of the respective people in the relationship get older, Rhoades says.

“At younger ages, there are many more developed milestones that people move through and move through more rapidly,” she says. “And so, the difference between an 18-year-old and a 28-year-old qualitatively feels like a bigger difference than a 28-year-old and a 38-year-old, right? I think sequentially, over time, that developmental difference just gets smaller and smaller as people get older.”