During The Recession, Online Dating Is Up and Divorce Is Down

Well, there is one good thing about the recession we're in: Couples are staying together and weathering the storm rather than jumping ship, and more singles are going online looking for love and money than ever before.  Here's the scoop from an article entitled Recessions Change Love Statistics, Too:

Is it true that misery loves company?

Just look at the trends.

Divorce lawyers say business is down. Online dating sites are experiencing double-digit growth.

So in this troubling economy, it appears love really does conquer all, right?

Not exactly.

Struggling couples are are staying together for love and money while singles are looking for romance and half the rent.

“I've had clients joke about how they need a double-income household,” said Lisa Purdum, a matchmaker for It's Just Lunch in San Diego.

While the number of divorce filings has been steady over the past couple of years, local divorce attorneys are seeing slower business. According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 37 percent of its members said they typically see a decrease divorce cases during national economic downturns.

Later in the article:

Online dating sites such as eHarmony.com and Perfectmatch.com have seen business increase dramatically during the downturn. At eHarmony, registrations from September 2008 to January 2009 have increased 20 percent from the same period a year ago.

The worse the economic news, the more people seem to seek out love, Gonzaga said. For instance, on days the Dow dropped by 100 points or more, eHarmony saw an increase in the number of pages people viewed on its site compared with days when the Dow increased by 100 points or more.

Perfectmatch.com has found a similar trend. In the fourth quarter, when the Dow plummeted, revenue increased 42 percent from the previous quarter and the number of registrants jumped by 62 percent.

The sites attribute part of the increased interest to the fact that people are staying home to save money and spending more time on their computers. Finding someone online is simply more cost-effective than paying for overpriced drinks at a bar.

Duane Dahl, CEO of Perfectmatch.com, called relationships and online dating "one of those air-and-water categories that is never going to go away."

But Shoshana Grossbard, an economics professor at San Diego State University, isn't so sure that all those online daters are looking for marriage. She said marriage typically loses its allure during tough economic times. During the early years of the Great Depression, for instance, the number of marriages dropped from 1,233,000 in 1929 to 982,000 in 1932, a 20 percent decline. So far in San Diego County, marriage numbers have remained strong, however, perhaps buoyed in part by a flurry of gay marriages last year.

To read the entire article, go to this page on SignonSanDiego.com.

P.S.  Want to know which sites have benefited the most from the downturn in the economy?  You guessed it - Sugar Daddy Dating sites!