Rugby may be New Zealand's national sport, but sleeping around looks like our unofficial favourite pastime.
According to a study of 14,000 people in 48 countries, New Zealanders are the second-most-promiscuous people in the world, just behind Finland.
A total of 256 New Zealanders, comprising 104 men and152 women, took part in the study of sex, culture and strategies of human mating conducted by Bradley University in the United States.
At the bottom of the table for promiscuity were South Korea, Bangladesh and Taiwan, while Australia was ranked at number 21.
Europeans are the most promiscuous, while respondents from the more conservative countries such as Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, are less promiscuous. The study found that people were more promiscuous in countries like New Zealand where women outnumbered men, compared with cultures that had more men than women, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Researcher David Schmitt said: "Sex differences in sociosexuality were significantly larger when reproductive environments were demanding, but were reduced to more moderate levels in cultures with more political and economic gender equality.
"In cultures where women possess more political, economic, and relational power to make their own sexual decisions, women appear to preferentially choose a more unrestricted form of sociosexual expression."
More than 22 per cent of women and 36 per cent of men who took part in the study reported having sexual intercourse with more than one partner in the previous year, and almost half of the women (43 per cent) and more than half of the men (62 per cent) reported that they foresee having sex with more than one partner in the next five years.
Respondents were asked seven questions, such as how many sexual partners they had in the past year, how many one-night stands, sex with casual partners, and if they found sex without love acceptable.
The study also found that men are more likely to seek casual sex in their late twenties while women wait until their thirties.
