The study, “Dating and Sexual Behavior Among Single Parents of Young Children in the United States,” was conducted by a multi-university group of Kinsey-affiliated researchers, including IU gender studies professor Justin Garcia.
Garcia said the study was prompted by questions asked of his other romantic and sexual relationships research about differences between singles with and without children.
“We realized that there wasn’t much in the ?academic literature to respond to these questions,” he said. “So, we decided to embark on this study.”
The study involved a survey of 5,805 heterosexual, gay, lesbian and bisexual single adults, of which 2,121 were single parents and 342 were single parents with children ages five or younger.
Garcia said the results, which found that single parents with children five and younger date and are as sexually active as singles without children, go against the popular notion that children have a negative affect on their parents’ sex lives.
“We found the overall findings interesting, in part because they were counter to common assumptions about single parents and also counter to what theory would predict with respect to the demands of parenting,” he said.
Parents of young children, both male and female, often experience hormonal changes that can affect their sexuality, according to a University release.
Garcia said this study shows how little is known about the roles of romance and sexuality in the lives of singles and especially ?singles with children.
“There is not much known about the ways in which children, both young children and older children, influence the social and sexual lives of parents,” he said.
Garcia said in a University release that this study was unusual in its focus on single parents.
He noted that, while their isn’t much academic literature on the sexuality of parents at all, the research that does exist often focuses on paired parents.
Garcia, in addition to professorship at IU, serves as a scientific adviser to the international dating site, match.com.
Garcia said his team has several ongoing follow-up studies that are further exploring the romantic and sexual lives of single ?parents.
All the research is a part of the group’s larger national study, “Singles in America,” which includes a survey of more than 5,000 American singles aged 21 and older every year with the purpose of better understanding the attitudes and behaviors of adult singles in the United States, he said.
“Single parents are a sizeable and growing demographic in the U.S., and we are interested in understanding how they choose to balance parenting with sexuality,” Garcia said.
