Mumbai, Sep 26 (IANSlife): Data revealed fascinating insights on Maharashtrians and their partner preferences while choosing to get married.

MarathiMatrimony one of the leading matchmaking service for Marathis, from BharatMatrimony, studied the demographic patterns of lakhs of registered users. Highlights from the research, which had a user base comprised of 30 per cent women and 70 per cent men, reveal:

Individuals are increasingly taking marriage decisions into their own hands as is evident from the fact that 76 per cent of the matrimony profiles are created by the individuals themselves, with only about 7 per cent created by parents and the rest by siblings and others.

Interestingly, 55 per cent women and 61 per cent men were open to looking for a partner outside their caste.

The preferred countries for members open to seeking life partners living overseas were USA, Germany, Canada, and France.

Twenty-six per cent women and 7 per cent men were looking for life partners whose education qualification is Masters or above.

The top professions for men were "Business Owners and Entrepreneurs", followed by Executives and Supervisors. Among women registrants, it was Software Professionals followed by "Executives".

The top five cities within Maharashtra that witnessed a maximum number of registrations are Pune, Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur, and Ahmednagar. For Marathis living outside the state, the top cities with the highest number of registrations are Bengaluru, Belgaum, Hyderabad, Surat and Vadodara.

Commenting on the trend, Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO, Matrimony.com said, "Over 20 years, MarathiMatrimony has earned the trust of lakhs of Marathis to become the No. 1 choice when it comes to finding a life partner. We are fast growing our user base amongst the Marathi community across the globe and continue to improve the service for them."