Ladies, we know what the statistics say. Most studies and exit poll type surveys on married couples attribute that 60% of men and 40% of women that are married are or have been involved in an extramarital affair of some sort. Moreover, in the US it is approaching the 80% likeliness rate for at least one partner in a marriage to have had such an affair. Like so many other researchers and sociologists, I aim to find out what some of the triggers are; but beyond that, I’m looking for classes of men and women who don’t have the propensity to be unfaithful.
Please don’t scoff at the title, though I’m sure some will. From January to October 2007, I conducted a sociological study of married people to assess where their tendencies towards infidelity are most prevalent. Oddly enough, I ended up collecting more data than I had intended, and some of it is extrapolated for this purpose. This research is my own and the results I choose to share are my own; I have submitted to several relevant publications for inclusion and hope to gain some spotlight from at least one of them.
A little bit of demographic information:
| Total surveyed | 16583 |
| Men | 9726 |
| Women | 6857 |
| Average age (all) | 31y 172d |
| Age (men) | 32y 31d |
| Age (women) | 30y 219d |
I’m not going to go into racial/ethnic balance and geographic dispersion, but I will say that the demographics are close to the overall American population averages, and that I have at least 50 respondents from all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
So, first let’s talk about what I found were the categories of men and women that are most likely to be unfaithful. In my population, 916 respondents (5.52%) reported an annual income of over $200k per year – the majority of these were also in large metropolises. Of those 916 (552 men, 364 women), 788 (86%) admitted to either a current or previous extramarital affair in their current marriage. From that 788, only 207 averaging an age of 29y 106d were in their first marriage which simply tells us that 581 (73.7%) of those who are cheating in the high tax bracket have been married at least twice. Lesson to be learned: if you are divorced and looking for a big fish to pay the bills, be prepared for her/him to step out for free samples, because nearly all of them are doing it once they’ve gotten back on the boat at least once.
Among other income brackets, those earning under $25k per year were the second most likely to cheat at 52.6%. I found that, on basis of income alone, those married people earning between $40k and $60k per year (5147 respondents) were the least likely to cheat, but this number was still at 31.911% and was higher for women than men.
Where propensity to be unfaithful gets interesting is when it’s broken down by common hobbies. I think it is largely untouched to approach the hobbies of married people as a basis for comparison. While it can be said with some value that individual personalities drive their hobbies and ultimately their mental framework of fidelity, we can certainly learn a lot about a person by what they value in their spare time.
You may be surprised (and you may not) by these stats. The hobby which garnered the most unfaithful responses in the survey was weightlifting/working out. Maybe this isn’t a surprise; people who are attempting to take care of their body and shape themselves as they wish are usually more confident and able to carry conversation better than those who do not value personal appearance. But an alarming 75.22% of those who marked their primary hobby as weightlifting/working out also noted that they either have or currently are having extramarital relations.
Looking at the faithful end of the spectrum now, I was absolutely shocked at my own results. There are 4844 (29.2%) respondents who marked “video games” as one of their top two hobbies, which was surprising, but not so much over the average age of 31y. This is comprised of mostly men, of course, but more than 1000 women are in this category. Overall, only 372 (7.68%) people in this group responded that they are/have been unfaithful in their current marriage. 2941 in this group have been married more than once, and 1502 of these 2941 said that a previous marriage ended because of their spouse’s unfaithfulness but not their own.
Breaking down this gamer category for men and women, there were 3683 men and 1161 women. Of the 372 marking themselves as unfaithful, 244 were women and 128 were men. This gives us a yield of 3.48% of gamer men having fidelity issues and 21.02% of women. Despite the relative disparity, these numbers are still well below other demographic rankings and certainly below the national statistic estimates.
A brief list, by primary hobby, of fidelity rankings:
Best – Men
1. Video games
2. Reading
3. Religious study
Worst – Men
1. Weightlifting/working out
2. Financial investing
3. Golf
Best – Women
1. Knitting/Sewing
2. Religious study
3. Video games
Worst – Women
1. Weightlifting/working out
2. Club hopping/bar hopping
3. Volunteering/Community outreach (!)
I will repost or update this post if my full research is published in any accredited publication.
Against the Grain 