4 things Facebook’s data scientists know about your relationship

Data geek? You’ll love this. In the run up to Valentine’s Day, Facebook’s data science team has put together a series of posts exploring relationship-related stats using an anononymised aggregate data on its global and US-based users. So, what did they find out?

If you’ve been ‘in a relationship’ for more than three months, it’ll probably last for years

While trying to work out clear trends from the mass of data the team collected is difficult, the Facebookers found that around half of all relationships which have lasted for more than three months are likely to survive four years or longer. They worked this out using data from users who had changed their relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘in a relationship’, and did not include those who were married or who had only been together for 1-2 months.

The research supports the basic premise that the longer you’re in a relationship for, the less likely it is to end.

You’re likely to break up in summer

Summer lovin’? Not so much. When plotting the data on a timeline, the data science team found that breakups tended to peak around the summer months, and dip in the month of love (February). In this case, the team defined ‘break ups’ as when one or both people in a relationship deleted the relationship status from their profile.

As the research used data from the US from 2008 – 2011, it was also possible to track any major spikes in break up activity — noticeably, the team found that a large number of relationships ended at the end of 2011, which it theorises may have something to do with the rebounding economy.

Same-sex partners have more of an age gap

The assumption that men are generally a few years older than the women they date was proved to be true by Facebook’s team, who found that internationally, on average, the male in the relationship is 2.4 years older than his girlfriend. Overall, the male is older than the female in 67% of relationships, while just a fifth of relationships feature an older female and 13% have partners which are the same age.

That all goes out the window when you take a look at same-sex relationships though. Facebook found that the older US same-sex couples are, the more likely they are to have a larger age gap between them.

Globally, the team found that the “highest average age difference between men and women occurs in Egypt, where on average the male is 5.09 years older, and only 6% of relationships have an older female compared to 85% with an older male.” Australia has the smallest average age gap between partners, but even there, there is an average gap of 1.82 years between the male and female, and 63% of relationships have an older male.

You’re more likely to date someone who doesn’t practice the same religion than you are to marry them

Facebook also took a look at religious aspects of relationships, and found that, from the UK to Singapore, people are more likely to stick with partners who have the same beliefs. Interestingly, in the US, younger users are likely to date people who don’t practise the same religion, but as they get older, that tendency declines.

The team found that “marriages between younger people are more likely to be interfaith than marriages between older people”. The religion with the highest likelihood of intermarriage in the US? That would be the Jedi. Just 13.2% of the light sabre-wielding romantics manage to find another Jedi to marry. Shame.