Men who depend on their female partners financially are more likely to cheat on them, a new study has claimed.
But for women, economical dependency has the opposite effect, according to the study presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta.
The research, which examined the relationship between income disparity and infidelity, suggests that cheating could be one of the ways for men to restore their gender identity which they think is under threat as they have to depend on their partners' earnings.
"But for women, economic dependency seems to have the opposite effect: the more dependent they are on their male partners, the less likely they are to engage in infidelity," said study author Christin Munsch, a sociology doctorate candidate at the Cornell University.
For their study, Munsch and her team used data of 18- to 28-year-old married and cohabitating men and women who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth from 2002 to 2007.
It was found that men who were completely dependent on their female partner's income were five times more likely to cheat than men who contributed an equal amount of money to the partnership.
The relationship between economic dependence and infidelity disappeared when age, education level, income, religious attendance, and relationship satisfaction were taken into account.
Munsch said: "It may be that men who make less money than their partners are more unhappy and cheat because they are unhappy, not necessarily because they make less money."
Ironically, men who make significantly more than their female partners were also more likely to cheat.
Munsch said: "At one end of the spectrum, making less money than a female partner may threaten men's gender identity by calling into question the traditional notion of men as breadwinners.
"At the other end of the spectrum, men who make a lot more money than their partners may be in jobs that offer more opportunities for cheating like long work hours, travel, and higher incomes that make cheating easier to conceal."