“Men only like younger women”

“White men like Asian women”

“When people say they are 5’6″, they really mean they are 5’4″”

… and the relationship stereotypes continue…

13 months ago, we started CMB with a simple idea: what if we created a dating site that used your own social network to help you find  love? Close to a million matches later (whew!),  and we’ve helped connect thousands of singles across the nation!  As an awesome byproduct of this, we’ve also collected a ton of data on what different groups of people are looking for when it comes to dating.
This month, we’ve decided to use this data to launch a series of posts busting common dating myths.
First up: Do Jewish Men Really Have a Thing for Asian Women?
Ok, maybe it’s because I’m an Asian woman but I see TONS of White guys and Asian ladies running around together and those White guys, for whatever reason are ALWAYS JEWISH!  I swear to Shiva (Obvious exaggeration here but you get my point).

 Of course, the topic of racial preference in relationships has been looked at before, famously by OKCupid as well as the New York Time’s Tierny Lab. However, we at CMB feel uniquely suited to test this specific hypothesis because of our –how shall we put it– enormously overly-representative Jewish & Asian membership.  Seriously, check it out; numbers don’t lie:

Ethnicity Distribution among CMB members vs. the US (A-1)

NOTE: We divided White into Jewish and non-Jewish for the purpose of this analysis. 99% of the Jewish population was White.

As you can see, Jewish and Asians are over-represented by ten times on CMB compared to the total US population. This is largely due to the fact that we first started our service with a group of 200 young, urban professionals (our own friends!) in New York City, who, by and large, happened to be Jewish and Asian. Given that CMB has grown largely by members encouraging their friends to join, it’s no surprise that the trend has continued.

On to the findings:

A quick refresher on how CMB works:  Every day at noon, CMB introduces members to one single (a.k.a. a “Bagel”), whom they must LIKE or PASS within 24 hours. These Bagels are friends of friends who also meet the member’s basic match preference criteria – gender, age, race, religion – which the members tell us when they first register with CMB. A mutual LIKE leads to a direct connection via a private phone line that the couple can use to communicate.
What Jewish Men Say They Want (When it Comes to Ethnicity)
On CMB, members get to pick any number of ethnicities they want in their Bagels, or no preference at all. Since we’re currently looking at Jewish men who are specifically interested in Asian women, we just looked at men who picked at least one ethnicity preference. Here is what Jewish White Men told us they wanted. Note that we also included non-Jewish White Men’s preference as a point of comparison.
Ethnicity preference of White Male Members

Note: We want to point out that “all men” here only includes straight men. Gay members, don’t fear – we’ll dedicate a post to you soon!

 What exactly do these numbers mean? Take a look at the White (Jewish) Men’s row. The first 19% means that 19% of Jewish men chose Asian women as one of the ethnicities they preferred. The darker green indicates higher percentages, and the lighter green, lower ones. A similar percentage of Jewish men were interested in Hispanic women (17%). Compared to this, a much larger percentage (65%) of Jewish men chose White women (dark green).
How about Jewish White men vs. non-Jewish White men? It turns out, more non-Jewish White men prefer Asian women (29% vs. 19%), however, they also prefer women of their own ethnicity the most (54%) and a substantial percentage of them also like Hispanic women.
Verdict so far? Based on the numbers, there is no evidence to suggest that Jewish men have a particular preference for Asian women.
Asian fetish???
Next hypothesis: Even though most Jewish men prefer White women, there is a group of Jewish men who have a “fetish” for Asian girls (a.k.a. they only want Asian women).
Given that members can pick any number of ethnic preferences, it was pretty easy for us to check this. We simply looked back over our data and found members that picked only one ethnicity.
% of men who only want one ethnicity

Overall, 28% of men indicated they only wanted one ethnicity. Of these, Jewish men had the highest percentage, followed by Asian men. So what ethnicity did these men want??

Preferences of Male members with Only One Preferred Ethnicity

 
NOTE: We dropped Black and Hispanic members because only a small % of these men wanted only one ethnicity.
Of the men who had only one ethnic preference, 7% of White men and a puny 1% of Jewish men said they only wanted Asian women. So much for the Jewish guys wanting Asian girls myth!
Interestingly, 8% of Asian men said they only wanted to date White women and a higher percentage (11%) of South Asian men said the same thing. Long story short: going by the numbers, Jewish men clearly don’t have an Asian fetish. Some White men may, but if that is the case, an equal percentage of Asian and South Asian men have a White fetish going on!
So what the heck is happening?
If Jewish men aren’t interested in Asian women, is it possible that the reverse is true, that it’s the Asian women who are going after Jewish men? Here is a table that shows the percentage of women who are looking for only one ethnicity.
% of women who only want one ethnicity

50% of women expressed interest in only one ethnicity. Like their male counterparts, Jewish women had the highest  single-ethnic preference percentage at 74%. So who did these ladies want?
Preferences of female members with Only One Preferred Ethnicity

Among women who only wanted one ethnicity, 100% of White women only wanted White men. Most Asian women only wanted Asian men, however, a full 34% of them (and 16% of South Asian women) also only wanted White men.   Looks like it’s good to be a white man…still.

Wrap-up

Judging by what CMB members told us about their Bagel preferences, Jewish men liking Asian women seems to be an unfounded myth. Put that one up there with having an orgasm if you sneeze seven times. However, it does look like there’s a bit of a trend in the reverse: Asian women are fiends for White men, including Jewish men.

Final Verdict: False

Stay tuned for our next post! Have any dating myths you want us to bust? Let us know at [email protected]!

Quick Note about Methodology:

CMB’s current Chief Data Scientist Abraham used a chi-square test (using frequencies) to confirm that the distribution of preferences across ethnicities were statistically different.

About Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB): CMB is a dating app designed with women in mind. Founded by 3 sisters in 2012 in NYC, CMB aims to deliver a fun, safe, and quality dating experience that results in meaningful relationships.