The more economically dependent a man is on his female partner, the more likely he is to cheat on her, according to research to be presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
“But for women, economic dependency seems to have the opposite effect: the more dependent they are on their male partners, the less likely they are to engage in infidelity,” said Christin Munsch, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, and author of the study, “The Effect of Relative Income Disparity on Infidelity for Men and Women.”
According to the study, which examined 18- to 28-year-old married and cohabitating respondents who were in the same relationship for more than a year, men who were completely dependent on their female partner’s income were five times more likely to cheat than men who contributed an equal amount of money to the partnership. The relationship between economic dependence and infidelity disappeared when age, education level, income, religious attendance, and relationship satisfaction were taken into account.
“One or more of these variables is impacting the relationship,” Munsch said. “For example, it may be that men who make less money than their partners are more unhappy and cheat because they are unhappy, not necessarily because they make less money.”
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