'Mankeeping' is the new reason women are giving up on dating

One reason more and more women are remaining single by choice has been revealed - and it's all to do with 'mankeeping'.

Dating and relationships can be hard work at the best of times - from finding someone on the same wavelength as you to begin with, to making sure that relationship lasts over time, there's many ways infatuation can go wrong really fast.

But, according to new research, an increasing number of women are refraining from dating and relationships altogether as they don't want to get bogged down with mankeeping.

So, what is mankeeping?

Well, according to researchers from Stanford, it is the emotional labor women take on in many heterosexual relationships, where they carry the emotional burden for men, rather than the friends in their partners' lives.

Women end up taking the majority of the emotional labor in heterosexual relationships. Credit: Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images

The research found that in the past 30 years, male social circles have shrunk more significantly than women's, leaving men to unload their emotional burdens on their partner whereas once they could have turned to their male friends.

This emotional dependence on their partner can place excessive strain on women as they take on the full weight of emotional support for their partner.

Angelica Ferrara, lead author of the paper and postdoctoral scholar at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, claims their recent research shows that some women spend several hours a week helping the men in their lives manage their emotional and social well-being.

Mankeeping refers to the unseen emotional work that women invest into their male relationships, such as with their partners, family members, friends, and even colleagues.

They broke it down into three areas - emotional support, building social networks, and teaching social skills.

The research noted that women often become the emotional support systems for the men in their lives, as they are the ones there to check in with them and listen, whereas in past decades, men would have a more solid circle of friends to take some of this burden.

Women also largely take on the responsibility of being social coordinators to ensure that the men in their lives continue to maintain their friendships, often by instigating catch ups and meetings.

Male social circles have declined significantly in the past three decades. Credit: Justin Paget/Getty Images

They also often teach the men in their lives the interpersonal skills necessary to keep connections alive, including by asking thoughtful questions and teaching their men how to listen to one another.

Mankeeping can thus add a lot of extra emotional baggage to a woman's life, which has led to many young women checking out of the system completely by avoiding dating.

Another study from the Pew Research Center showed that women are now 23% less likely to want to date than men - not because they don't want a relationship, bit because they feel like they have invested too much emotional labor into former relationships without getting the same effort and support in return from their male partners.

Featured image credit: Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images