--- title: Men of All Ages Want Women in Their Mid-20s, Study Says description: Whereas women tend to prefer men of the same age or slightly older canonical: https://time.com/3433014/men-women-dating-mid-20s/ author: Denver Nicks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-26T16:55:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:03.766Z og:title: Men of All Ages Want Women in Their Mid-20s, Study Says og:description: Whereas women tend to prefer men of the same age or slightly older og:url: https://time.com/3433014/men-women-dating-mid-20s/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc93d2e1af62c440/6986a59e169ab0307227b6aa/woan-date-biking.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5134 og:image:height: 2888 og:image:alt: Couple holding hands while riding bicycles og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Men of All Ages Want Women in Their Mid-20s, Study Says twitter:description: Whereas women tend to prefer men of the same age or slightly older twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc93d2e1af62c440/6986a59e169ab0307227b6aa/woan-date-biking.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Men of All Ages Want Women in Their Mid-20s, Study Says > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Sep 26, 2014 4:55 PM UTC  Couple holding hands while riding bicycles Couple holding hands while riding bicyclesCavan Images—Getty Images  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks Sep 26, 2014 4:55 PM UTC Straight men of all ages [tend](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub%5Freleases/2014-09/aof-tia092514.php) to have their romantic sights set on women in their mid-twenties, while women prefer men who are about the same age as they are, according to a new study. The survey out Friday, financed by the government-backed research funding group Academy of Finland, gathered data on 12,000 Finns and found that women, on average, are looking for partners who are about their age or slightly older. But men across the age spectrum have a sexual preference for women in their mid-20s. This remains true for men of all ages—men in their early-20s or younger are attracted to women older than themselves and older men are attracted to younger women. The findings are similar to [data](http://time.com/3302251/9-ugly-truths-big-data-ok-cupid-book/) culled from the dating website OKCupid, which found that male users of the site of all ages, by far, are looking for women in their early-20s. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3433014/men-women-dating-mid-20s/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3433014/men-women-dating-mid-20s/"},"headline":"Men of All Ages Want Women in Their Mid-20s, Study Says","datePublished":"2014-09-26T16:55:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:03.766Z","description":"Whereas women tend to prefer men of the same age or slightly older","url":"https://time.com/3433014/men-women-dating-mid-20s/","keywords":["Living","women","Dating","Sex","Porn","Men"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc93d2e1af62c440/6986a59e169ab0307227b6aa/woan-date-biking.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Denver Nicks","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfc93d2e1af62c440/6986a59e169ab0307227b6aa/woan-date-biking.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Couple holding hands while riding bicycles","caption":"Couple holding hands while riding bicycles","creditText":"Cavan Images—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3433014/men-women-dating-mid-20s/","name":"Men of All Ages Want Women in Their Mid-20s, Study Says"}}]}] ```