Left Oblique

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Who cheats?

According to Yahoo! News and the infamous ashleymadison.com, the top professions for marital infidelity are very different between men and women:

For Women:
1. Teachers
2. Stay-at-home Moms
3. Nurses
4. Administrative Assistants
5. Real Estate Agents

For Men:
1. Physicians
2. Police Officers
3. Lawyers
4. Real Estate Agents
5. Engineers

With the exception of real estate agents, which I'll address later, these lists make total sense. According to the "study", women mostly cheat because they're not being emotionally fulfilled by their partners. It makes sense that women who are underpaid, overworked, or just generally unappreciated at work and unhappy at home are more likely cheat than those who at least get some fulfillment from their occupation.¹

For the men, powerful and prestigious jobs seem to top the list. Powerful, wealthy, and prestigious men have always had a tendency to believe that the rules don't apply to them - and in reality, they're usually right.² The "researchers" also learned that powerful/prestigious men felt that they deserved extramarital sex, which they overwhelmingly sought simply for pleasure and excitement (and not to fill an emotional hole).

For both men and women, the top jobs are all high-stress with relatively long hours. Note that #2 on the women's list is specifically "stay-at-home mom" and not "homemaker" or "housewife" - I think that's significant. People don't give stay-at-home parents enough credit; it's a very hard, time-consuming job with no pay. But stress and long hours leads to both general unhappiness and (with the exception of the moms) lots of time away from the home with members of the opposite sex other than the person's spouse. Opportunity has to at least be a factor in these rankings.

Real estate agents are an interesting case. Real estate is both higher-stress and more prestigious than your average job. But I think the key here is that real estate agents are constantly meeting new people in their own socioeconomic class who live close enough to cheat with. Equally important, they work odd hours, so very little of their coming and going would seem suspicious. Again, opportunity has to be a major factor.

¹ Also note that the top jobs for women are also mostly among the most common jobs for women, so there is considerable selection bias. In fact, the biggest flaw in this entire "study" is probably not normalizing for the percentage of the overall population in each profession.

² Note that neither "politician" nor "professional athlete" made the list. I think that's mostly selection bias (there are far less of them than of the other professions) and partly because of the spotlight put on people in those fields. If you're Tiger Woods, you're certainly not going to go on a site like ashleymadison, no matter how confidential it claims to be.

Posted by Dave at 2:04 PM

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