A couple of years ago, people started to get interested in how on-line dating was changing the way we date and conduct our relationships. The improved access to like-minded people that comes from new technologies has changed a lot of things, but in many ways we Australians remain quite conservative. Here’s ten Australian relationship statistics that you might not know:
- Despite all the talk about women’s lib, a recent survey found 42 percent of women still believe that men should always be the ones to pay for dinner.
- When it comes to the dating scene, 26 percent of men were looking for a long term relationship, as opposed to thirteen percent of women. This difference only gets larger as the age of the people quizzed increases.
- Some four in ten Aussies now claim to have used some form of new technology like email, social networks, internet dating or mobile phones to be their main way of forming important relationships. Of those, nearly a quarter of them are using them to form romantic relationships.
- Not that we’re blowing our own trumpet here, but the proof of the pudding about the popularity of on-line dating these days comes when we hear that nearly seventy percent of people quizzed about finding a new partner say they would or are already using internet dating sites to do so.
- Nearly three quarters of Aussie couples live with someone before marrying them these days, as compared with only a third nearly thirty years ago.
- The average age of people beginning their first marriage in Australia has gone up in recent years to twenty nine for men and twenty eight for women.
- Another survey recently found that of Aussies not currently in a relationship, nearly half of them were actively looking for some kind of a relationship – with a roughly equal split between those looking for friendships or long term relationships and only five percent only looking for something short term.
- Even though we’re weathering the financial ups and downs affecting the globe at the moment, money is still counted as a major source of stress in relationships. Forty percent of couples agreed recently that financial problems affected their relationships.
- Reassuringly, we Aussies maintain a healthy attitude to our sex lives, with eighty eight percent of men and eighty percent of women agreeing that an active sex life is an important element in keeping a sense of well-being.
- We’re also still dyed in the wool romantics – with nearly ninety one percent of Aussies surveyed agreeing that the only reason they would marry would be ‘for love’.
Love makes the world go round, especially when the sun is shining and the heat is on. If you haven’t found anyone yet, keep looking, we’re sure they’re just around the corner.