Women opt for younger men

When Gwyneth Paltrow married her younger boyfriend last week, she joined a growing trend. One in four women is walking up the aisle with a toyboy - almost twice as many as 40 years ago.

The age difference is, on average, two years - not quite on the scale of Demi Moore, whose lover Ashton Kutcher is 16 years her junior, or Madonna, whose husband Guy Ritchie is ten years younger.

Paltrow, 31, married her rock star boyfriend Chris Martin, 25, in a secret ceremony in Santa Barbara last Friday.

Back in 1963, only one in seven marriages involved an older woman. The average age was 22 for a woman and 23 for a man, compared with 27 and 28 today.

In the 1960s, couples met at school or through friends and so the age gap was narrow because there was not a big choice. Today, the difference in more than half of marriages is more than five years.

The changes may have social implications, says the Office of National Statistics. Retirement ages of 60 for women and 65 for men have been on the assumption that a husband is older than his wife.

Report author Cecilia Tomassini said: 'Age has become less of a defining factor in social identity and therefore larger age gaps may be more acceptable to the partners themselves and to society.'