One of the perennial questions asked by American men pursuing a relationship with a Russian woman is, are older men successful at attracting younger women? This question comes in several variations such as, does the average age difference vary between a man in his 30s and a man in his 50s?, or, is the age of the man or woman an important factor in whom each will select as a partner?
Of course the terms "American Man" and "Russian Woman" are somewhat generic and I use them here out of convenience. Participants in this little survey were predominately men from the US and the women they have relationships with are predominately from one of the former Soviet Union (FSU) countries.
In the latter part of 2000 DrGary began soliciting age information from several of the e-mail lists whose focus is AM-RW relationships. (Primarily the Russian-Woman-L list at St. Johns and the egroup list RussianWomenList.) Prior attempts to gather this and other information were not very successful because the data gatherers also wanted answers to questions that many men consider to be personal, and therefore were reluctant to provide and thus refused to participate. DrGary kept it simple, he asked for the man's age, and if he was involved in a relationship with an RW, how old was she. A very few volunteered other information such as how long the relationship has existed, whether married or not, but the number was much too small to be useful in a statistical analysis.
For this analysis, DrGary assigned each AM or AM-RW couple an identifying number, and sent me a data file stripped of any personally identifyable information. All told 212 men responded to the survey, of whom 189 are in a relationship of some type with an RW.
I anlayzed the data using a statistics package called SPSS. All the statistics and graphs presented on these webpages were generated by SPSS.
I've kept the technical jargon to a minimum and tried to explain any terms that I think might not be commonly known. In the few cases where I've reported the results of an inferential statistical test, just ignore it if you don't know what it is.
Statistics come in two flavors, descriptive and inferential. The mean or average is an example of a descriptive statistic, it merely describes one aspect of the sample. Median, mode, variance, standard deviation, are also descriptive statistics. In contrast, inferential statistics infer something about the larger population the sample is taken from. Analysis of variance and regression analysis are examples of inferential statistics.
On these webpages I am reporting mostly descriptive statistics. In a few cases I am reporting the results of an inferential statistical test, and my use of these tests is somewhat suspect because the data do not meet the requirements the underlying theory rests upon. The most serious violation is that the sample (i.e., the men who responded to the survey) was not randomly selected from the larger population of all AM pursuing a relationship with an RW. Instead these men volunteered the information--also known as a self-selected sample--and they may be very different from men who did not volunteer; there is no way to tell. There are one or two other, lesser I believe, violations which may affect the validity of the statistical tests, but they get fairly technical and I will not attempt to explain them here.
As for sample size, with 212 men including 189 couples, other things being equal, this is large enough to produce reliable statistical results. Or in plain English, it means that if another 212/189 people reported their ages, the same results would obtain.
Please click through the sections in the order they are listed because I explain specialized terms the first time I use them (e.g., Normal curve). I use inferential statistical tests only in the analyses for the mean age difference for men and women, all other statistics are descriptive. The histograms (i.e., bar charts) show the standard deviation, mean, and N (i.e., number of data points) in a legend at the lower right side.
Unless stated otherwise, all graphs, tables, and statistics refer to the men involved in a relationship only, men not in a relationship are not included.
DrGary collected and compiled the raw data used in this analysis, questions pertaining to this should be directed to DrGary777@aol.com. The statistical analysis, graphs, tables, and this website were created by me, StatGuy@mochamail.com, and questions or comments concerning same should be directed there.
I hope you find the information on this site interesting and informative.
Last updated: 17 January 2001
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