The 24th season of "The Bachelor" kicks off this Monday on ABC, with 30 women vying for the heart of Peter Weber, known as "Pilot Pete," from Hannah Brown's season of "The Bachelorette."
For the overwhelming majority of those women, this ends badly: either in a curt farewell at a rose ceremony or some other telegenic end to their relationship with Peter. But it seems like every year, these contestants on "The Bachelor" get younger, right?
They don't, the rest of us are just getting older.
We pulled the data on every participant on "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" for all the seasons recorded on the Bachelor Nation Wiki, the most extensive repository for "Bachelor" franchise data online. While information about a few early seasons is missing, we've got details on 481 women who competed on "The Bachelor" and 366 men who competed on "The Bachelorette" leading up to Peter's season.
Read more: Meet the 30 women who will be competing for Peter's heart on 'The Bachelor'
Generally, women were way younger than the men. The average woman who appeared on "The Bachelor" was a little over 26, while the average man on "The Bachelorette" was 29.
The age window for women on the show was considerably tighter, too: 79% of female contestants were aged 28 or younger, compared to 48% of men. Two-thirds of women who compete on "The Bachelor" are aged 23 to 27. For comparison, two-thirds of the men on the show are 28 or older.
Peter's season will continue to follow this pattern, with the average contestant being 25. In fact, out of the 30 women, just one is over the age of 30.
That age gap somehow expands even further when you compare the age of the contestants to the leads of the show. The average contestant on "The Bachelor" is 4.8 years younger than the male lead, while the average contestant on "The Bachelorette" is 1.3 years older than the female lead.
This actually ends up having a pretty significant effect! The age difference between "The Bachelorette" star and the winner on her season was on average 1.2 years, in line with the overall average age difference. But the stars of "The Bachelor" pick winners who are on average younger than the overall contestant: Across the 16 seasons where we have data, the woman who wins "The Bachelor" was on average 5.6 years younger than the lead.
Read more: A former 'Bachelorette' reveals why no one actually falls in love on 'The Bachelor'
According to the 2014 Current Population Survey, among heterosexual couples, the average age difference is 2.3 years.
So if it seems like the contestants get younger every year, there are shifts but the general trend is fairly flat. The average contestant age in each season stays pretty consistent, and the average age has never been more than 1.2 years off of the overall contestant age.
The likelier reality is that the rest of us are getting older, and gradually aging out of the age demo of the contestants pool. This graph will show you where you'd stand among the hundreds of hopefuls who fought for that final rose:
