It’s common knowledge that pawnbrokers and discount retailers tend to do better during a bad economy, but it seems running a dating service can be recession-proof as well.
New research has shown that dating services and online dating sites have become rather popular over the past few years, though it’s unclear what’s driving the nation’s singles to seek romance as the eurozone crisis deepens and unemployment rises here at home. It could be that a sluggish economy leaves people more time to devote to their private lives, or it could simply make better financial sense to seek a partner to shoulder their part of the burden of living costs.
Around one out of four women surveyed recently by a major dating site said that the state of the economy left them stressed, leading them to look for a long-term relationship in order to find a measure of financial stability. Not exactly a romantic notion, but anecdotal evidence gathered by the same dating site says that its website seemed to become much more busy whenever the stock market drops precipitously.
Of course, there’s a slightly more sinister side to this as well: websites dedicated to facilitating affairs between married couples are also doing quite well as the world economy continues to slide. Economic woes are one of the biggest problems married couples can deal with, after all, so it makes sense if the general lack of financial stability drives a formerly happy couple into the arms of strangers to seek solace – apparently some of these websites are less expensive than couples therapy.
