It’s the cliché as old as they come: man of a certain vintage ditches age-appropriate other-half for much younger model, one with fewer miles on the clock, no visible wear and tear and still sizzling under the bonnet. Much as it would be easy to dismiss the notion as outdated, or consigned to the all-too predictable plots of TV dramas (take Doctor Foster, Big Little Lies and Cold Feet, to name a recent few), the data says otherwise.

According to online dating site OkCupid, while women look for prospective partners of a similar age to themselves, men favoured a 22-year-old conquest – no matter what decade of life they were in. While Finnish research has found that men are far more willing to embrace...