The cost of finding love in South Africa vs the rest of the world

 ·10 Feb 2019
online love

European moving company, Movinga, has published a new Cities of Opportunity Index, which looks at the 100 most in-demand cities in the world, and how welcoming they are for those who are looking for love.

According to Movinga, its research has found that the top reason for people to move to another city is to pursue employment opportunities – however, in a lot of cases people are moving to be with their families or even to find love.

Using data from InterNations, Spark Networks and its own polls and surveys, the group looked at “love infrastructure” in cities, to determine which best lend themselves to provide the best opportunity for love.

Movinga looked at the distribution of singles across different age ranges; male to female singles ratios; marriage to divorce ratios; LGBT laws; the cost of dating; and more abstract concepts like sex positivity, online dating and romance.

The group even included data on the main thing that men and women want from a relationship in each city, based on dating profiles.

Finding love in Joburg

Joburg was the only city represented on the index, ranked as the 54th best city to look for love in.

The city is estimated to have 3.4 million single people (about 61% of the population – the 11th highest on the index), with an almost even 1:1 ratio of single men to single women. Joburg’s single men are looking for honesty from their partners, while the single women want loyalty, the index found.

Joburg’s singles are also fairly young, with 70% of the people aged 15 to 29 being single. This drops to 26% after 30, and just over 5% after 50.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the city is fairly welcoming to expats looking for love (5.2), and mildly romantic (5.5) – but scores really well for online dating (8.3).

Overall, though, the city is more conservative, with a sex positivity score (which tracks things such as sexual activity, experimentation, sex toys, porn consumption, adult clubs and gender equality) of just 4.6.

Joburg ranks as the 24th most affordable place to date – with the average price of a date in the city at $52 – or R710.

Joburg vs the world

On the overall index, Miami in the US was found to be the best place to look for love out of all 100 cities assessed. The city scored high on most of the indicators, though didn’t top any of the categories.

Miami is followed by London (UK), Gothenburg (Sweden), Paris (France) and New York.

Here is top and bottom city data for each of the categories:


Read: The 3 biggest reasons expats no longer want to settle in South Africa anymore

Show comments
Subscribe to our daily newsletter