Going Dutch on a Date? ‘Men Still Pay the Bill’

You’ve had dinner together on your first date and the bill appears on the table: who pays? It’s the etiquette question that many singles ponder. And no matter who you ask, men or women, opinions are divided. Should it be the man? The woman? Or should we split? This simple question is now one of the world’s biggest debates in dating.

Some dating experts will tell you that when a man and a woman go on a first date, the man should always pay. Others will say that we’re not in the year 1900 anymore and that women are perfectly capable of paying for a date. And for some, going Dutch is the only option when they go on a date: they only want to pay for themselves. But what does the research say?

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Men pay the bill

A recent study published in the journal Psychological Reports shows that traditional gender norms still persist in modern dating culture. According to the research, men are almost always expected to foot the bill on a date. Not only that, but they also pay more than women for subsequent dates.

In the new study, Hao Wu and his colleagues from the University of North Carolina Wilmington set out in 2021 to find out whether gender differences in paying for a date still exist, and also whether there are expectations that one person should pay more than another. The group of participants consisted of 552 heterosexual college students, about half of whom reported being single.

All participants completed a questionnaire to investigate their attitudes toward gender roles. In addition, they were asked to respond to questions about what they actually paid and expected to pay for first and subsequent dates. For example, participants were asked questions such as “Who paid the bill for the first date?” and other questions that focused on subsequent dates with the same person.

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Traditional gender norms remain popular

The researchers found that traditional gender norms remain popular among singles who date. In practice, men almost always foot the bill for first dates and pay more for subsequent dates. This was not only the case in the real-life situations, but also in the expectations that the participants had.

So do women not want to pay at all? Yes, because the results show that women do show some willingness to share the expenses of the date. But, according to the researchers, not nearly as much as men. Despite the promotions of equality and diversity, it seems that the gender differences in dating will continue to exist for a while.

The authors of the study do point out some limitations. For example, only heterosexual people participated in the study, 97% of them earned less than 25,000 per year and only students were involved. Because of these characteristics, the results cannot be translated to groups of singles with different characteristics.

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