Survey Suggests That Gender Roles Are Changing In America

According to a major recent survey conducted for Match.com, Americans' thoughts on traditional gender roles have evolved significantly over the course of the last few decades.

The survey explored the attitudes and expectations of more than 5,000 single men and women in America, and found that men may now be more interested in long-term love, marriage, and children, while women are now seeking a greater sense of independence in their relationships. The participants surveyed came from a wide range of sexualities and relationship backgrounds, including some who had never married (56%), some who were divorced (32%), some who had been widowed (10%), and some who had separated from their spouses (3%).

"Men are now expressing some traditionally female attitudes, while women are adopting some of those long attributed to men," says Helen Fisher, the renowned biological anthropologist who helped developed the survey along with social historian and author Stephanie Coontz and Justin Garcia, a doctoral fellow with the Institute for Evolutionary Studies at Binghamton University in New York.

As outdated gender boundaries blur, men are now more likely to want children than women, and are quicker to fall in love. 54% of men reported experiencing love at first sight, compared with 44% of women, and 24% of men without children under 18 stated that they want kids someday, compared to only 15% of women.

Women are now looking for more independence in their relationships, assuming a role that has traditionally been thought of as male:

• 77% of women say that personal space is very important, vs. 58% of men.
• 78% of women say that having their own hobbies and interests is also very important, vs. 64% of men.
• 35% of women say that enjoying regular nights out with their friends is important, vs. 23% of men.

Kathleen Gerson, a sociology professor at New York University who did not participate in the survey, has found many of the same alterations to the ideas surrounding gender roles in her own work. "Men and women are looking for similar assets and are not judging a potential partner on the basis of gender-related traits - that a woman is looking for a paycheck object or a man is looking for a sex object," she says. "They're both looking for the whole package, more so than in the past."

For more findings from the survey and expert opinions on the results, click here. To find out more about the dating site which commissioned the survey you can read our Match.com review.