Statistics

Some surprising finds in the UK for men and women who start dating in their sixties, seventies, and eighties. As divorce rates rise, singles older than 60 is a growing trend. A lot of baby boomers have found that once their children have left home, they were the only thing holding their broken marriage together. When you combine this with our longer life spans when compared to previous generations, there are a lot more seniors who are single, than there use to be.

Match.com has said on numerous occasions that the older generation is their fastest growing market. Also, according to eHarmony's UK dating site, 30 percent of men over the age of 65 live alone and the figure doubles to 60 percent for woman. Why is there such a huge percentage difference between men and woman? I think it comes down to two factors. First women on average live 5 to 10 years longer than men and with the about equal gender split in the world you are going to have many more women single due to them being widowed. The second factor is, men tend to go out with younger women. Therefore a man who is 65 and living with someone (and included in eHarmony's statistic), is more likely than not, living with a woman under the age of 65 (and not included in the statistic).

For the rest of the story, read The Guardian. If you are a senior and interested in online dating, read our Match.com or eHarmony review. You could also check out our Dating Over 50 category for a list of dating sites specifically for older singles.

From a survey which looked at dating and married couples relationships, researchers learned that the primary predictor of happiness in a relationship is your perception of, if your partner motivates and supports you to live up to your dreams and aspirations. With married couples there was one additional need found that is required to make a marriage a successful one. You must feel that your partner is helping you with your current obligations and responsibilities.

The significant finding, the researchers say, is that we often believe that if our dating partner gives us support to follow our dreams, they’ll probably support other parts of our life, namely our immediate responsibilities. But the ability to inspire a partner is not an accurate predictor of support for the more mundane and immediate obligations. And this can sometimes lead to a rude awakening when the church bells ring.

77 married couples and 92 dating couples participated in this survey which is to be published this summer in the journal, Psychological Science.

For the full story, read Scientific American.

<p>The New York Times has an article about the recession and how it has affected online dating. Nothing much new is mentioned in the article that hasn't been mentioned before in others except with a couple of exceptions.</p>

<p>We knew that PerfectMatch.com has seen a large spike in members in Q4 of 2008 but we only knew it was around 47 percent which was about half way through quarter 4 (see Story). According to the New York Times article, Perfect Match saw a 51 percent increase in members in quarter 4, when compared to the same quarter of 2007. Perfect Match growth continued into January 2009, but not quite as high at 30 percent. PerfectMatch.com CEO, Duane Dahl also noted that they experienced a similar trend in the rise of memberships for their dating site during the last economic downturn in 2001, after the internet economic bubble burst.</p>

<p>To read the complete story visit the New York Times. Registration may be required to read the article. For more information on PerfectMatch.com, read our online dating review.</p>

Matchmaking service It's Just Lunch released the results of a poll which looks at dating, the economy and the holidays. Over 7,500 people participated in the poll which had 9 questions. Among other things the poll asked singles at what point in the relationship is it appropriate to give a gift and how much should you spend on a gift. 42 percent of voters thought a gift is warranted this holiday season if you have been dating for at least a month and 43 percent of the voters thought this gift should be worth between $25 and $100.

For more information on this matchmaking service, read our It's Just Lunch Review.

The Unofficial eHarmony Blog got a peek at eHarmony’s June advertiser kit which had an interesting promotional page. On it eHarmony stated they receive 3.2 to 3.5 million unique visitors with 350 - 500 million page views per month. With this traffic, they receive 12 - 15 thousand new registrants per day. From this, 1 in 20 site visitors will subscribe to eHarmony and these memberships refresh every 3 to 4 months.

From the information above, I calculated that eHarmony receives between 600 – 750 in new paid members a day or 219,000 – 273,750 paid members a year. This means at any one time on eHarmony there are between 72,000 and 90,000 paid members (if you take the 4 month member average refresh rate).

I’ll have to update my Online Dating Statistics & Facts page with this new information. For a more detail view of eHarmony, try reading our review.

I found a news piece that contains some predictions that the number of singles who will pay to use online dating sites may have reach its limit. They mention several statistics to support this including one from ComScore which saw unique visitors to all dating sites fall in the month of March, even though Internet traffic grew by 6%. The author also pointed out that Match.com subscriber growth slowed and only increased by 1% in 2007 where as it increased by 25% in 2006. There was also several other points mention to support his theory.

My view on things is that the glory days of online dating in North America where the main online dating sites posted double digit subscriber growth numbers is probably over. There are so many options available now in the United States for singles to join. They have the choice now to join numerous social networks and free or paid dating sites to find a match. The thing is, It is very difficult for anyone to figure out what the best choice is for them when even a high school kid can buy a cheap but fully functional dating script, install it on a web server and make it appear that the dating web site offers everything a single needs (except other members).

I don't think it is all bad news though. Of the roughly 90 million singles in the United States, only 3 million are actively using an online dating service. 87 million customers is still a huge target market. Dating Companies now, are also expanding into Europe and Asia where online dating is just starting to catch on.