Men who earn less than their female partners are more likely to cheat on them, a study published on Monday found.

Cheating may be a man's way of trying to restore his gender identity when he feels it is under threat, Christin Munsch, a sociology doctoral candidate at Cornell University, says in the study, which she authored and presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

"Making less money than a female partner may threaten men's gender identity by calling into question the traditional notion of men as breadwinners," Munsch said.

Indeed, the study found that infidelity dramatically increased when the man earning less than his female partner is Latino, probably because breadwinner status is "one of the defining features of Hispanic masculinity."

Then again, the same study found that men whose partners were more dependent on them were also more likely to cheat, making it a lose-lose situation for women.

It's different for girls, though. Overall, women are half as likely to cheat as men anyway, whatever the circumstances, the study found.

"Women's femininity is not defined by their breadwinner status, nor is it defined by sexual conquest. Therefore, economic dependency does not serve as a threat to women," Munsch says.

The study indicates ways to prevent one's partner cheating without giving up the well-paid day job. Both sides being satisfied in a relationship is a sure-fire way to make infidelity disappear, and getting your partner to go to church or the mosque or temple regularly is another: the more regularly an individual attends a religious service, the less likely he or she is to cheat, the study says.

Looking for a partner in a university library, lab or lecture might also be an idea because, the study says, "the more education one reports, the less likely he or she is to engage in infidelity."

(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Web site.)

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(Agencies)