Married women's cheating hearts beating faster

Study finds them having more affairs than ever before

October 29, 2008|By Joel Hood

How's this for sexual equality?

Though men are still overwhelmingly more likely to cheat on their spouses than women, the fairer sex is gaining ground.

A study of infidelity sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Chicago indicates that the percentage of women who say they have been unfaithful is growing faster than the percentage of men who admit the same.

Data collected since 1972 and due to be presented next month at a behavioral studies conference show that 15 percent of women over 60 confessed to having an affair in their lifetime in 2006, compared with 5 percent in 1991. The rate for men over 60 increased from 20 percent to 28 percent.

Adultery is up among younger couples too, with one in five men and one in seven women younger than 35 admitting to having been unfaithful.

So what's happening?

Some argue that newer images of women on television and in the movies have altered long-held views that women who sleep around are promiscuous while men are virile. Some suggest modern innovations such as e-mail, cell phones and instant messaging are opening doors to intimacy that didn't exist in the past.

Others say that women today are more likely to spend long hours at the office and on the road for business -- environments that can lead to greater temptation and opportunity.

"Their employment patterns [are] becoming more like men, and you would suppose other behaviors would follow," said Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago.

Or, it could be that women always had affairs; they just didn't brag as much as men.