Rising prices are changing how young people date. In the United States, a growing number of young adults are blocking or cutting off contact with partners to avoid disputes over dating costs, while in South Korea, men and women are drifting apart over how the bill should be split.
According to "The New Economics of Dating" report released this month by U.S. payment service Zelle, which surveyed 1,800 Gen Z and millennial adults with dating experience last month, 43% said they had ghosted, blocked or unfollowed someone to avoid a request to settle up after a date. Among Gen Z respondents alone, the figure reached 52%.
Twenty percent of Gen Z respondents said they had taken on debt to keep up their social lives, and 19% said they had borrowed money from family or acquaintances. The trend toward cutting back on dating or giving it up was also clear. A total of 84% said rising prices had affected their dating lives, with 32% saying they had gone on fewer dates and 11% saying they had stopped dating altogether because of the cost.
Other surveys conducted around the same time point in the same direction. A BMO Financial Group survey found the average cost of a date rose 12.5% over the past year, while dating app Hinge reported increased use of lower-cost options such as coffee or walks in the park.
Money is also becoming a test of whether to keep seeing someone. Half of respondents said financial requirements mattered more than before, and more than half cited whether a partner spends money wisely (56%) and talks openly about money (54%) as attractive traits. Experts say agreeing on how to divide costs early in a relationship helps reduce conflict.
The picture in South Korea is different. The dispute centers less on the burden of costs than on how much the other person pays. In a survey of 506 unmarried men and women by matchmaking firm Gayeon, respondents were asked to divide dating costs on a 10-point scale: men put their appropriate share at 5.96, while women put theirs at 4.04. That amounts to viewing a roughly 60-40 split, with men paying 60%, as the reasonable line.
Views on what causes conflict split along gender lines. Men most often pointed to differences in spending habits or values about what to do on a date (48.0%), while women most often cited one side paying too little or nothing at all (40.0%).
