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The male/female ratio of online dating

One of the facts of online dating is that there are more men than women online. For example, Match.com recently told ABC News that 59% of their subscribers are men and 41% are women. You can confirm the ratio yourself by doing searches for profiles.

The high male/female ratio of online dating is not the fault of the online dating services, but it reflects the unfortunate realities of the real world. Over a decade ago I recall reading a New York Times article that stated that there were approximately 6 single men in their twenties for every five single women.

How is this possible? Aren't there an approximately equal number of boy and girl babies born each year? The biggest contributor to the skewed ratio is serial polygamy. A man in his twenties marries a woman in her twenties, then in his thirties he divorces her and marries another woman in her twenties, then in his forties he marries another women in her twenties. This happens. I have a friend who's in his fifties and his current wife is in her twenties.

There is also parallel polygamy. I woman I know, when she was in her twenties, knew a guy who had two girlfriends at the same time (neither, of course, knew of the other one's existence). And at the same time he was also hitting on her, trying to bring his harem up to three!

What's going on in the real world is reflected in the virtual world of online dating. In fact, it's skewed worse than in the real world, because online dating sites attract a much greater percentage of people who have trouble finding dates. So not only will there be more men, there will be more undesirable (for whatever reasons) members of both sexes.

Men who use online dating services will initially try to contact the few women they are interested in. But because the desirable women receive more emails than they can respond to, male subscribers eventually figure out that they have to send out massive numbers of emails because the response rate is so low. So we wind up in the situation we're in now. Female subscribers to online dating services receive more emails than they can respond to, and male subscribers send out large numbers of emails and rarely get a response.

Women actually complain about this, but I think they are in a far better situation than men. If you are a man, how do you fix the problem? The answer is that you need to move to Manhattan. There are more single women in Manhattan than men. If you do searches in Match.com for Manhattan, you will find about 50% more female profiles than male profiles. The opposite of the ratio for the rest of the United States.

Living in Manhattan and using Match.com, I've been quite happy with how many women respond to my emails. And being a nerdy IT professional, I'm not a high priority catch for most women. They'd rather be going out with the good looking athletic men. You also get to meet women of a caliber you'd never find in Phoenix, Arizona, like graduates of Harvard and Yale law schools.

posted August 10, 2005

8 Comments:

By robinbene:

DearHalf Sigma,
I learned in high school biol-
ogy that there are 105 boys born
for every 100 girls born. This is
significant in our modern age be-
cause the extra boy babies are
making it to adulthood thanks to
high tech neonatal intensive care
units.
Happy girl hunting in Manhattan!

posted at 8/12/2005 11:18 PM

By Online Dating Insider:

According to this article, what robinbene says is 100% correct, there are approximately 105 boys born for every 100 girls.

This can be a pretty signfigant difference. Assuming that men and women are matched 1:1, this means that 5% of men will never find anyone to pair up with.

posted at 8/13/2005 11:50 AM

By Mortgage Brokers:

I also learned in my school days that almost male and female ratio tilts more in favor of males. This obviously, giving the importance to females as they are in less numbers.

posted at 12/20/2005 12:37 PM

By Jonathan:

Don't forget that there are actual gay and lesbian people who are a part of the population who don't match up with the opposite sex.

Not everyone is straight!

posted at 1/02/2006 5:01 PM

By JULIO:

Once I read this blog, it left me thinking. How is the male to female ratio on the site that im using? so I did some Sherlock Homes work on Wealthymen. What do you know, the nubers are the same but backwords. 51% are female and 49% are male users. atleast its good to know that there are a little more chicks on the site then guys. Check it out

posted at 6/22/2006 9:21 PM

By Bill:

Good point about serial monogamy, I never thought of that. We (guys) have it lucky compared to older women it seems.

Anyhow, I did what you suggested and did an online search survey on lavalife in Vancouver. The results are exactly what you said - 60:40 - i.e. 3 guys on there for every 2 girls. Interestingly if you narrow the search criteria to slim/fit/muscular, non-smokers the ratio goes up to 2 men per women.

But lets not beat about the bush. What about the age-old belief that men are just more randy than women? I did a similar survey of the 'intimate encounters' section of lavalife. On there are 7 men for every woman!

Isn't it true that guys want to have sex with more girls than the other way round? I'd love to be proved wrong on this one, and I know that really males and females have equally varied sexual desires, but in our society I can't help concluding that it's not as equal in this department as it should be by nature.

what do people think?

posted at 12/10/2006 1:42 AM

By Kirby:

I totally disagree with the above atricle. It is Acually worse in Manhattan. You know why there are so many single women in NYC? Thats because they only want the needle in the hay stack, the cream of the crop. Good looks, money, power, pretigious job. They want someone that is "financially secured". Women in NYC are much more independant than the average women in the United States. An if you do even find that match, I will probably not going to last long. Reasons for that is because women will always think that they can find someone better. I know this girl, she is now 39 and still going to clubs every weekend. Her story is that she is waiting for the "perfect man". In my opinion, the best place to find a nice date or maybe that potential match is school. Take a college course, attend a few pottery seminars. Your chances are better there. Again, just my humble opinion.

posted at 3/12/2007 6:05 PM

By Kent:

don't forget the higher infant mortality rate of males plus being the higher risk takers during adolescence means that by adulthood the numbers even out or leave more females. this becomes especially true in the more seasoned.

posted at 3/14/2008 1:30 PM