Independent Perspective News

BERLIN (Reuters) - The modern Western woman is now almost as likely to cheat on her partner as a man, according to a new survey carried out for a German women's magazine.

In an online survey of 1,427 men and women aged between 25 and 35 by the Hamburg-based GEWIS institute for social research for "Woman" magazine, 53 percent of women said they had been unfaithful to their partner, compared with 59 percent of men.

"In recent years, numbers of unfaithful men and women have evened out a lot," GEWIS head Werner Habermehl told Reuters on Tuesday. The survey revealed that non-sexual desires, such as the need for reassurance and understanding, were a primary motive among women for infidelity.

Habermehl said demographic factors were also behind the change in attitudes but more liberal attitudes to sex, greater knowledge about contraception, and more freedom for women had made having affairs less taboo than ever before.

As the frequency of cheating rose, the gap between the sexes was reduced, and eventually reversed.

Some 17 percent of woman said they had cheated two or three times, as against 22 percent of men. But when it came to having cheated four or five times in the course of a relationship, women moved ahead of men with eight percent against four.