33 Comments   
Now we know what male freeloaders are doing with all that free time.

According to a new study by Christin Munsch, a sociology PhD candidate at Cornell University, guys who make less than you do are five times more likely to make it with someone else.

The study examined a national sample of married or cohabiting couples between the ages of 18 and 28, between the years of 2001 and 2007. Then Munsch compared not only their finances, but their answers to the following questions:


-- Were they still in the relationship they were in the previous year?
-- How many sexual partners had they had in the past year?
-- Had they had sex with strangers in the past year?

If the relationship was the same, but the number of sexual partners had changed, or if the partner had hooked up with a stranger, then that was cheating, said Munsch.

Before you go home and get all in Mr. Mom's face, know that straying was fairly rare: 3.8 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women admitted to tapping someone they don't file taxes with. But what was fascinating was how the genders differed when it came to economic dependence. The study found that women became more likely to cheat as their income increased in relation to their partner's; men were more likely to stray if they were either economically dependent -- or made significantly more than their significant other.

No surprise there: For both sexes, Munsch theorizes, earning more may provide you with more opportunities to cheat. After all, what do you think happens after the trust falls on a business retreat?

But what she couldn't tease out quite yet was why the shallow-pocketed guys couldn't keep it in their pants. We have a few theories, but in the meantime, if it's devotion you're after, survey says choose a dude with salary parity.