Dating App Gender Ratios: Why the Balance Between Men and Women Is So Uneven

Dating apps bring millions of people into the search for connection, yet the people participating are far from evenly distributed.

In May 2025, men accounted for 68% of visitors to online dating services in the UK, according to Ofcom. A separate SSRS survey found that men also made up the larger share of current online dating users in the United States.

The numbers raise an interesting question: Why does a technology designed to connect people attract such different levels of participation from men and women?

The explanation reaches beyond how many people are single. Men and women enter dating apps with different expectations, encounter different experiences and make different decisions about continuing to use them. The way platforms organize those interactions can reinforce the imbalance.

In this article, Clique83 examines what drives the gender imbalance on dating apps, how it affects the experience of finding a partner, and what the research reveals about designing better ways for people to connect.

Key highlights

• The gender gap begins before people join an app. Differences in dating intentions, relationship status and willingness to use dating technology shape who enters the online dating market.

• Unequal attention can reinforce unequal participation. Men may struggle to receive responses while women spend more time evaluating incoming interest. Both experiences can reduce the value of participating.

• Safety, trust and social expectations influence participation. Women's decisions to use dating apps can carry considerations beyond the interactions visible on the platform.

• An overall gender ratio can hide local imbalances. Age, location and relationship preferences influence how many relevant partners are actually available.

How uneven are gender ratios on dating apps?

Men account for a substantially larger share of dating app users in several measured markets, although the size of the gap differs across platforms and populations.

The Ofcom Online Nation 2025 report found that 68% of UK adults visiting online dating services in May 2025 were men, up from 65% in May 2024.

A nationally representative SSRS survey conducted in February 2025 found that 57% of current online dating users in the United States were men, compared with 38% women.

More recent academic evidence supports the broader pattern.

A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis published in Sexual Medicine, drawing on 22 observational studies, found that women were less likely than men to report dating app use. However, the researchers also identified substantial variation across studies.

That variation is important.

There is no single gender ratio that accurately describes every dating app. Differences in platform positioning, geographic markets and the people each service attracts can produce very different user compositions.

Even a balanced overall ratio may hide unequal dating opportunities. Research by Bruch and Newman found that online dating markets form smaller groups with different gender compositions, particularly across age groups. A platform's total number of male and female members therefore offers only a partial picture of the partners available within an individual's preferred age range or location.

The more useful starting point is understanding how these differences develop.

Why are more men using dating apps?

Higher male participation reflects differences in the population actively looking to date, alongside differences in how men and women choose to pursue relationships.

More men are actively seeking romantic connections in some populations

Being single does not mean someone is looking for a relationship.

Pew Research Center's 2022 US survey found that 50% of single men were looking for a committed relationship or casual dates, compared with 35% of single women.

Among adults under 30, 63% of men described themselves as single, compared with 34% of women.

These findings suggest that part of the online dating gender gap may originate in the broader population of people actively seeking partners.

A dating platform cannot assume that the population interested in joining is evenly divided simply because the wider adult population has a relatively balanced gender distribution.

Men also show greater willingness to use dating apps

Differences in participation remain visible when researchers ask specifically about dating technology.

In a 2025 Ipsos survey in Great Britain, 24% of men reported using a dating app in the previous year, compared with 11% of women.

Among people aged 16–24, the gap was larger: 50% of men versus 28% of women.

Gender imbalance cannot be explained entirely by what happens after users register. Some of the difference already exists in people's willingness to consider dating apps as a way to meet someone.

Understanding the potential dating audience is therefore as important as understanding the experience that encourages people to participate.

Why do men and women experience dating apps so differently?

One of the most important differences is how attention is distributed. Men and women can participate in the same matching system while facing opposite problems.

Pew Research Center's study of recent US online daters found:

• 64% of men had felt insecure because they received too few messages.

• 54% of women had felt overwhelmed by the number of messages they received.

The findings reveal a tension within the interaction system.

When someone receives very few responses, sending more invitations may seem like a reasonable way to improve their chances. Yet if many people adopt the same strategy, the receiving side faces a growing volume of contacts to review.

Each person may be responding rationally to their own experience, while their combined behavior makes the overall system more difficult to use.

How unequal attention can reinforce the gender gap

Consider a male-heavy dating platform where men receive relatively few responses.

Sending more messages can appear to increase an individual's opportunity to connect. As the number of outgoing messages grows, women receiving those contacts face a heavier screening burden.

Some may respond to fewer messages, reduce their activity or decide that the effort is no longer worthwhile.

The experience can then become even more frustrating for men who are already struggling to receive replies.

Research published in Information Systems Research in June 2026 provides evidence of how this congestion operates.

Studying a large matrimonial matching platform in India, researchers observed that women received approximately 40 times as many expressions of interest as men, on average, in the setting examined.

The resulting volume made evaluating potential partners difficult and reduced women's engagement.

The study concerns a culturally specific platform focused on marriage, so its results should not be generalized directly to every dating app. Its underlying insight remains significant:

When contact volume grows faster than a person's ability to evaluate it, additional attention can make the matching experience less useful.

Gender imbalance can therefore contribute to interaction problems that may, in turn, reinforce participation differences.

What makes women more hesitant to join or continue using dating apps?

Women's participation is influenced by the amount of personal risk, uncertainty and effort they expect from online dating.

Safety concerns affect the cost of participation

Joining a dating app means becoming visible to people outside one's existing social circle. That exposure can carry different consequences across users.

Pew Research Center found that among US women under 50 who had used dating sites or apps:

• 56% had received an unwanted sexually explicit message or image.

• 43% had experienced continued contact after indicating they were not interested.

• 11% had experienced threats of physical harm.

These are experiences reported over users' histories with online dating, rather than events confined to one year.

A separate 2024 study on why people disconnect from dating apps identified several reasons, including negative experiences, privacy concerns, personal well-being and changes in users' lives.

Together, the research suggests that participation depends partly on the effort required to manage unwanted experiences.

A user evaluating an app may be considering the quality of potential connections alongside the personal cost of making themselves available to strangers.

That cost is easy to overlook when product success is judged primarily through sign-ups or messaging activity.

Social expectations add another layer

The decision to use a dating app also takes place within a cultural context.

A September 2026 study published in Culture, Health & Sexuality examined dating app experiences among 25 Vietnamese Gen Z university students across five cities.

Researchers found that participants negotiated concerns around personal reputation, family expectations and how relationships might be perceived by others.

One particularly interesting finding was anticipatory family filtering: some participants considered how their families might view a potential partner before beginning an interaction.

The qualitative study does not represent all Vietnamese singles. It does, however, highlight a dimension that broad demographic statistics can miss.

The perceived cost of using a dating app can begin before the first message is sent.

Privacy, control over visibility and the ability to evaluate someone's intentions may therefore influence participation in ways that conventional matching metrics do not capture.

Do men and women want different things from dating apps?

Men and women share many dating goals, but research reveals differences in the relationships they seek and the information they prioritize when considering potential partners.

Findings from SSRS's 2024, 2025 and 2026 US online dating surveys illustrate those differences.

One important finding from the 2026 SSRS survey is that finding an exclusive romantic partner remained the most common primary reason for using dating apps, across major demographic groups.

The difference between men and women is therefore more nuanced than the assumption that women want relationships while men only want casual dating.

The information people consider important when selecting a potential partner can also differ.

The 2025 Ipsos research in Great Britain found that 50% of men aged 16–24 believed women prioritized physical attractiveness and 39% believed they prioritized financial status. Yet young women in the same age group placed greater emphasis on humour (60%), kindness (53%) and communication (53%).

Those figures measure young men's perceptions of women's preferences against women's reported priorities, rather than men's own partner preferences.

The deeper issue is that people may be making dating decisions based on inaccurate assumptions about what potential partners value.

Dating apps built around photographs and brief profiles can make visible attributes easier to assess than personality, values or relationship intentions.

From our perspective at Clique83, the opportunity for dating apps with technology lies in helping people understand the person behind a profile before they invest substantial time in an introduction.

Greater clarity about what someone values can make the decision to connect more informed, even though it cannot guarantee attraction or compatibility.

Read more: The Match-to-Meeting Gap: Why Traditional Dating App Matches Don’t Always Become Real Dates

How can dating app design reduce gender-related friction?

Dating apps can reduce some of the friction associated with gender imbalance by limiting unsuitable approaches before they create additional work for users.

A 2026 study published in Information Systems Research examined an Indian matrimonial platform that introduced adjustable restrictions on who could view women's profiles based on selected partner criteria.

The intervention produced two notable results:

• Women received approximately 6% fewer expressions of interest relative to the control group.

• Matching efficacy increased by 72%, meaning incoming interest was more likely to result in a match as defined by the study.

Women also became more active in initiating contact. The measured matches represented opportunities for communication, rather than confirmed real-life dates.

The findings suggest an important distinction: Improving the relevance of incoming interest can create a better matching experience even when the number of approaches decreases.

The study's cultural context and eligibility criteria limit how directly its results can be applied to other dating platforms. Its wider lesson concerns reducing unnecessary screening while preserving individual choice.

Dating technology can support this approach by prioritizing relevant introductions and giving individuals meaningful control over whom they meet. The potential benefit comes from reducing friction in the matching experience; a change in the overall gender ratio would require separate evidence.

Read more: What Should a Dating App Optimize For: Engagement, Matches or Real Dates?

What does Clique83's female-majority community suggest about a different approach?

Clique83's experience offers an interesting point of comparison because our dating product is structured around introductions that can progress into real-life meetings.

Clique83 reports that 75% of our members are women, a female-majority composition that differs from several of the industry patterns discussed above.

We see that figure as a reason to examine how the experience is designed, rather than proof that a particular feature caused the difference.

Founded by Han Lam and Thuy Doanva, Clique83 draws on the perspectives of two women who have thought closely about the uncertainty, time and trust that can shape the decision to meet someone new.

Those considerations are reflected in Clique83’s Coffee Date Dating App

Members receive one AI-assisted introduction at a time, accompanied by a Match Letter that provides context about the other person's lifestyle, values and potential points of compatibility.

Each person independently decides if they want to meet. When interest is mutual, the platform helps coordinate an offline date.

The model gives us a way to explore an important product hypothesis: reducing the work required to find and evaluate an introduction may make dating participation more appealing to people who do not want to spend their time browsing and managing conversations.

That hypothesis deserves evaluation through continued participation, mutual interest and real-life meeting outcomes. The gender ratio alone cannot establish a causal relationship.

Our broader ambition is to build a dating experience where technology makes introductions more considered and real-life connection more accessible.

The relationship between gender balance and our product approach is explored further in Why More Women Than Men Matters in Dating: What Clique83's User Mix Says About the App.

FAQs

Can a dating app predict its gender ratio using industry averages?

Industry averages provide useful benchmarks, but a new platform needs evidence from its own target market. Age distribution, location, product positioning and acquisition channels can lead to a substantially different gender composition.

Would limiting unsolicited contact make dating harder for men?

The effect depends on how restrictions are designed. Research on one Indian matrimonial platform found that reducing unsuitable contact improved matching efficacy without negatively affecting male outcomes in that setting. Other platforms would need to evaluate their own results, including the potential loss of legitimate introductions.

How should smaller dating apps study gender balance with limited user data?

Smaller platforms can begin by tracking the experience of comparable groups over time. Qualitative feedback can help identify friction during onboarding, introductions and meeting decisions before the business has enough observations for more detailed statistical analysis.

References

Ban, T. Q. G., & Pham, C. T. (2026). Swiping between worlds: Anticipatory family filtering, face-work and gendered reputation in Vietnamese Generation Z university students' use of dating applications. Culture, Health & Sexuality. Advance online publication.

Bruch, E. E., & Newman, M. E. J. (2019). Structure of online dating markets in U.S. cities. Sociological Science, 6, 219–234.

Gelles-Watnick, R. (2023, February 8). For Valentine's Day, 5 facts about single Americans. Pew Research Center.

Ipsos. (2025, May 29). Young men believe women prioritise attractiveness and financial status when dating, but young women say kindness and humour more important.

Karmegam, S. R., Gopal, A., & Ramaprasad, J. (2026). Gender gating? Addressing the impact of congestion on the user experience for women in online matrimonial matching platforms. Information Systems Research. Advance online publication.

Kazimova, N. (2026, June 10). Is 'gender gating' the secret to success in online dating? George Mason University.

McClain, C., & Gelles-Watnick, R. (2023). From looking for love to swiping the field: Online dating in the U.S. Pew Research Center.

Ofcom. (2025). Online Nation 2025.

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Yıldız Karaahmet, A., Bilgiç, F. Ş., & Dişli Çetinçay, D. (2026). Sex differences in digital dating app use and app-mediated sexual and health outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Sexual Medicine, 14(5), qfag079.