Do Men Cheat More Than Women? Infidelity Trends by Age and Gender

Few questions in relationships spark more debate than whether men cheat more than women. Popular stereotypes say yes, but modern data paints a more complex picture. Drawing on national surveys and recent research, this article unpacks how infidelity actually varies by gender, age, and type of cheating — and what these trends might mean for couples today.

What Counts as Cheating Today?

Before asking who cheats more, it helps to clarify what we mean by cheating. Researchers often distinguish between several forms of infidelity:

• Sexual infidelity: physical sexual contact with someone outside the primary relationship.
• Emotional infidelity: forming a deep romantic or intimate connection with someone else, even without sex.
• Online or digital infidelity: sexting, explicit messaging, intimate video calls, or using dating apps while committed to someone else.

Surveys show that people do not agree on where the line is. In a national study from the American Survey Center, women were more likely than men to label a wide range of behaviors as cheating — including kissing, flirtatious messaging, or emotional closeness with someone else. This difference in definitions matters: if men and women see cheating differently, they may also report it differently.

Headline Numbers: Do Men Cheat More Overall?

Large-scale data in the United States still finds that men are more likely than women to report sexual infidelity, especially among people who have ever been married.

These estimates come from analyses of the U.S. General Social Survey conducted by the Institute for Family Studies, a research organization that tracks marriage and family trends. The gap is noticeable, but not enormous — roughly one in five men versus about one in eight women.

However, this overall difference hides important variation, especially by age.

Age Makes a Big Difference

When researchers break down infidelity by age, a more nuanced pattern emerges.

Younger Adults: Women Sometimes Cheat Slightly More

Among ever-married adults aged 18–29, women in one analysis were actually slightly more likely to report cheating than men (about 11% of women vs. 10% of men). The difference is small, but it challenges the idea that men always cheat more in every age group.

Middle Age and Beyond: Men Pull Ahead

After the late twenties, infidelity rates typically rise for both genders, but they rise more sharply for men.

• In the 30s and 40s, men become more likely than women to report extramarital sex.
• For women, self-reported cheating peaks around the 50s–60s, then tends to decline.
• For men, reported infidelity often stays relatively high into their 60s and 70s, sometimes peaking around the 70s.

By the oldest age groups — people in their 70s and 80s — the gap between men and women is typically largest, with substantially more men reporting they have had sex outside of marriage.

Why Are Younger Women Narrowing the Gap?

Several social and cultural shifts may be contributing to closer cheating rates among younger adults:

• Changing gender norms: Younger women are more likely to have their own income, autonomy, and acceptance of sexual agency, which may reduce the traditional double standard around women’s sexual behavior.
• Later marriage: People now marry at older ages on average. Longer periods of dating or cohabiting before formal commitment may change relationship dynamics and opportunities for infidelity.
• Technology: Social media, messaging apps, and dating platforms can increase the chances of forming emotional or sexual connections outside a primary relationship for both genders.

These are plausible explanations based on broader demographic research; causal links are still being studied. Large nationally representative datasets, however, clearly show that the once-wide gender gap in infidelity is narrower for younger adults than for older cohorts.

Emotional vs. Sexual Infidelity: Different Gender Patterns

Even when men and women cheat at similar rates, the type of cheating and their reactions to it can differ.

How Men and Women React to a Partner’s Cheating

Psychological studies often use hypothetical scenarios to ask which would be more upsetting: a partner’s sexual infidelity or a partner’s emotional infidelity. Historically, many findings suggested that men were more distressed by sexual infidelity, while women were more distressed by emotional infidelity.

A recent peer-reviewed study of university students, however, complicates this picture:

• Among all students, more men selected sexual infidelity as more upsetting, whereas more women selected emotional infidelity.
• But when researchers looked only at people in committed relationships, the sex difference shrank: both men and women in relationships were more upset by sexual infidelity overall.

This suggests that relationship status and context can be as important as gender when predicting reactions to a partner’s cheating.

How Common Is Cheating Overall?

Even though the stereotype is that “everyone cheats,” national survey data still shows that the majority of people do not report sexual infidelity during marriage.

• About 80% of ever-married men say they have not had sex outside marriage.
• About 87% of ever-married women say the same.

Those numbers may be underestimates or overestimates — survey responses can be influenced by shame, fear of judgment, or social desirability. Still, they demonstrate that infidelity, while significant, is not the norm for most married people.

Why Do People Cheat? Beyond Gender S stereotypes

Research on motives for infidelity identifies recurring themes for both men and women. Clinical and survey-based work points to overlapping reasons across genders, even if emphasis differs.

Common Factors Linked to Infidelity

• Relationship dissatisfaction: Feeling neglected, unappreciated, or emotionally disconnected can make outside attention more tempting.
• Low commitment: People who are less invested in their relationship or uncertain about its future are more likely to report cheating.
• Opportunity: Travel, work environments, and social technology can increase the chances to meet and conceal new partners.
• Personality and history: Traits such as impulsivity, high sensation-seeking, or a past pattern of infidelity can raise risk.

Gendered Patterns in Some Surveys

In a large online survey of people who had cheated, psychologist Kathy Nickerson and colleagues found several notable gender differences:

• Women tended to report fewer overall affairs than men and were more likely to stop after a single affair.
• Women had affairs somewhat younger on average than men, who more often reported cheating later in midlife.
• Men reported reconciling with their primary partner at higher rates than women did after the affair was discovered.

These findings come from a self-selected sample and should not be treated as nationally representative, but they illustrate that men and women’s experiences inside affairs can differ in meaningful ways.

Social Perceptions: Who Gets Blamed More?

Even when actual behavior is similar, men and women face different social reactions to cheating.

• Men are often expected to be more sexually driven, so their cheating can be dismissed as “typical male behavior,” which may downplay its seriousness.
• Women who cheat are more likely to be labeled as disloyal or morally flawed, due to lingering double standards about female sexuality.
• Because women are more likely to define a wider range of behaviors as cheating, they may report or confront certain actions (like flirting or online intimacy) more often than men do.

These norms can influence both what partners consider unacceptable and what they are willing to admit on surveys.

How Couples Can Use This Information

Statistics cannot predict whether any particular person will cheat, but they can highlight risk factors and conversation topics worth addressing.

Clarify Definitions Early

Because men and women may have different ideas about what counts as infidelity, couples benefit from explicit discussions about boundaries:

• Is flirting at parties acceptable?
• What about private messaging with an ex?
• Are dating apps ever okay, even “just for fun”?

Agreeing on ground rules up front reduces the chances that one partner feels blindsided later.

Monitor Relationship Health

Research consistently links infidelity with relationship dissatisfaction, emotional disengagement, and low commitment. Paying attention to early warning signs — escalating conflict, withdrawal, or loneliness within the relationship — can help couples intervene before someone seeks connection elsewhere.

Consider Life Stage Pressures

The fact that cheating rises in midlife for many people suggests that age-specific stressors matter:

• Work pressure and career changes
• Parenting stress or empty-nest adjustments
• Health challenges and aging-related anxiety

Addressing these stressors together can strengthen commitment when the statistical risk for cheating tends to climb.

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