We’ll tell you, it’s about 28 per cent. Facebook has been examining its data on married couples across the US to try and find out where people are most likely to meet their future spouses.
The results from Facebook’s Data Science Unit show that if you went to college it’s good chance you may have met your future partner there. A better than one-in-four chance to be exact with 28 per cent of married college-graduates attending the same college in or around the same four year period.
These findings did not specifically capture whether the relationship started while the two were enrolled or had started either before or after, merely that they were there around at the same time.
The type of college you attended has a major influence on your long-term relationship status however with demographics, as well as the college’s religous and political outloook playing a key role
The stats were collated separately for men and women and found that women who attended colleges with a large male population were more likely to meet a partner there. Rose–Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana for example, it specialises in engineering and has an 88 per cent male population, women had greater than 7 out of 10 chance of being in that college at the time of their future spouse according to Facebook.
Colleges with a conservative ethos were also a more fertile breeding ground for budding relationships, over half of women in the US Air Force Academy attended the college at the same time as their spouse.
Facebook says the measurements did not distinguish whether spouses are of the same or different sex but said that the statistics reflect primarily heterosexual married couples.
High schools were also measured in terms matchmaking prospects with 15 per cent of married couples attending the same high school as their spouse. This is less likely for schools in densely populated areas according to the research.
Read the results in full here >
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