When Do Guys Reach Maturity? Men Do Not Mature Until Age 43, Over A Decade After Women

It has been known for decades (if not centuries) that girls typically mature faster than boys. Hollywood has highlighted the notorious maturity gap in the slew of films made featuring a grown man still enthralled with fart jokes and gags and his female counterpart being...not so impressed.

If you've ever been curious about whether or not this maturity discrepancy exists, then know that a 2013 study, commissioned by Nickelodeon UK, found that boys do not mature until they are well into adulthood. Specifically, they reach maturity at the age of 43. When do women mature? Eleven years earlier than men at the age of 32!

Understanding human maturity is a complex considering the discrepancies surrounding it. While most people and the government consider 18 to be the age of adulthood — hence voting rights, smoking rights and the age at which one can be deployed into the military — science has found 25 to be the more fitting number.

"We are becoming much more aware and appreciating development beyond [the age of 18] and I think it's a really good initiative," says child psychologist Laverne Antrobus, who works at London's Tavistock Clinic, to the BBC. "Neuroscience has made these massive advances where we now don't think that things just stop at a certain age, that actually there's evidence of brain development well into early twenties and that actually the time at which things stop is much later than we first thought."

In 2010, researchers from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London found that the brain does not stop maturing until you are in your 30s or 40s. The brain's prefrontal cortex, the region responsible for cognitive functions like decision-making and empathy, is the region that continues developing well into "adulthood."