Levels, trends and patterns of age difference among the couples in India

Age of the couples is one of the most basic and important information collected in almost all demographic and health surveys. This particular study makes an attempt in exploring the extent of age difference and the change over time among the couples in India. It also analyses the impact of other socio-economic, demographic and cultural factors in explaining the variation in age difference among the couples. The study analyses the age difference among the husbands and wives on the basis of the reporting of the age of the couples by the wives by using a nationally representative sample of the three rounds of National Family Health Survey conducted at three different points of time (1991-92, 1998-99 and 2005-06). The present study uses the data of 257629 (combined data for NFHS-1, NFHS-2 and NFHS-3) currently married women who married only once. It is found that in India the age difference among the couples has decreased over the period of time from 7 years during 1956-60 to 5.2 years during 2001-05.