It seems that women are starting to cheat almost as much as men.
According to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek published this week, the most recent data from the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey show that women have had more affairs in the past two decades then in previous years. The percentage of men who admitted to infidelity "held constant at 21 percent," while "the percentage of wives having affairs rose almost 40 percent ... to 14.7 percent in 2010."
“Men are still more likely to cheat than women,” Yanyi Djamba, director of the Auburn Montgomery Center For Demographic Research, told Bloomberg. “But the gender gap is closing.”
One of the potential reasons for the increase in female infidelity is the changing cultural and economic climate in America, Pepper Schwartz, a University of Washington sociologist, told Bloomberg.
“[Women] can afford the potential consequences of an affair, with higher incomes and more job prospects,” she said. “They have more economic independence and may meet a better class of mate.”
This isn't the first study to suggest the infidelity gap is closing. Early this year, 33 percent of men and 19 percent of women admitted to being unfaithful when they were polled for the The Normal Bar, an extensive survey of the romantic relationships of more than 100,000 people. The survey pointed to some of the most common reasons people stray, from sexual boredom to diminishing communication with partners.
Click through the slideshow below for more findings from recent cheating studies and surveys:
