According to Professor Emily Grundy, this is because women are often required to put in more work for love; from spending time on their appearance to resolving arguments.
“There’s evidence that women spend longer on domestic tasks than men and I think they also do more emotional work – so they still do more housework and cooking and things as well as more emotional labour,” she told The Telegraph.
What’s more, Grundy says women are better at socialising by ourselves and are more likely to have close friends we can rely on in times of need.
“Women tend to be better at having alternative social networks and other confidantes whereas men tend to rely quite heavily on their wives for that and have fewer other social ties,” she explained.
“Certainly, there’s a common finding from a lot of studies that women who don’t have a partner tend to do more social activities and have more friends compared to women with partners whereas with men it’s the reverse - men without a partner tend to do much less of that.”
“So it may be that women have a wider range of alternatives.”
This article originally appeared on Women's Health.
