Men want attractive partners, women above all want rich ones. That is certainly not true in its absoluteness, but researchers always find the tendency in their work. The result of a study is all the more surprising, those in the trade journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. has been published. An international team of researchers led by Kathryn Walter from the University of California at Santa Barbara asked almost 15,000 people from 45 countries about their partner preferences. It turned out that the demands of women and men are extremely flexible – and are quickly adjusted in an emergency.
First of all, the study confirmed the clichéd gender-specific differences: It is therefore true that men tend to pay more attention than women to how attractive their future life partner is. But these expectations of appearance decrease when men are in the majority in a society. In return, the demands of women increase: They want more attractive partners. It is similar with the financial prospects, which women are on average more important when choosing a partner. Outnumbered women expect a life partner to be in a better financial position. If the relationship between the sexes is reversed, however, the demands of women decrease – and in return the desire of men for a good financial situation for their partner increases.
Those who belong to the larger group have worse chances of finding a life partner and have to meet higher expectations themselves – it is like supply and demand. Conversely, those who are particularly in demand can have high demands. Ultimately, this also has evolutionary advantages. Those who can adapt their needs to the current situation have a better chance of finding a permanent partner.
The status of equality says nothing about who has power in the partner market
The minority, as the stronger power in the partner market, wants particularly attractive and wealthy partners: the researchers were able to observe this pattern in all 45 countries in the study, whether in Malaysia, China, India, Peru, the USA, Nigeria or Germany. Using a scale from one (very unattractive) to seven (extremely attractive), the test participants were able to express their partner preferences. In addition, they rated themselves. Therefore, the researchers were able to classify how much more attractive or wealthy than the local average an ideal partner should be.
In contrast to the majority situation, cultural influences and the level of equality cannot reliably predict preferences when choosing a partner. According to Walter, the degree of equality in a country only plays a role if it influences the numerical ratio. In countries where girls are often aborted, for example in China, there is a shortage of women. As a result, women in such countries have a surprising amount of power in the partner market, although they are obviously less desirable for parents-to-be: They can choose their romantic partners with high expectations.
As flexible as the demands on appearance and finances are – not all characteristics of an ideal life partner were found to be negotiable in the study. The preferences for intelligent, loving and healthy partners do not change with a different gender ratio. Men and women consistently have very high demands on their partners, says Walter. “With these characteristics they are apparently unwilling to compromise, even in an unfavorable partner market.”