Gender stereotypes are still alive and well in the online dating world, study says

Women, if you think it serves you well to write the first message after matching with a guy, you're wrong. Men, if you think that financial success is irrelevant in dating, you, too, are mistaken. At least if we are to believe the numbers.

Online dating may have practically revolutionised how we date in modern society, but apparently traditional gender roles still dictate how men and women engage in online courtship.

In a major new study from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), researchers have looked at data from 150,000 – exclusively cisgendered, heterosexual – users on the dating site eHarmony over a 10 year period in the UK. Their findings show(opens in a new tab) that both men and women still exhibit gender stereotypical behaviour when dating online.

The study concludes that online dating has not just perpetuated male dominated initiation, but exacerbated it, since men are 30 percent more likely to write the first message.

When women do initiate contact, it doesn't do them much good. The study shows that women's response rate goes down 15 percent when they are the ones to write first. It puts the inequality in the who-writes-first game down to "learned norms".

The study also argues that since Tinder was introduced the "psychological costs" of messaging has declined for men – they simply care less. To put things in context, Tinder was first released in 2012 and had a billion swipes per day by 2014.

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The study also shows that yes, women are more likely to be evaluated on their looks than men. Some of the most important factors for determining women's success were physical traits such as age and athleticism, while men are being judged by their degree of agreeableness and altruism as well as their athleticism. Being clever predicts success for men but not for women.

Men, on the other hand, have more reason to be concerned with the size of their pay check than women, since women are still 30 percent more likely to take income into consideration when looking for a partner. But, the study concludes that, over time, a partner's income is becoming less and less important for both men demonstrating that Brits are generally becoming more and more open to dating people with a different financial and educational background.

So, ladies, please be young and fit and whatever you do, don't write first. Gentlemen, be well-paid, well-behaved and willing to take initiative at all times. Or, you know, go with your gut and be yourself because that's the most important thing.