THE AGE OLD question of what a woman wants in a man is age old, or at least age dependent, according to a new study.
The study, which was conducted by researchers from the University of Göttingen, Indiana University, and Queen’s University Belfast, involved over 20,000 single women aged 18 to 67 years from nearly 150 countries. It found kindness and supportiveness remain attractive traits regardless of age, however, older women tend to prefer more confident, assertive partners and are more open to a wider age range, including younger partners.
The study also found the importance of a partner’s parenting intentions peaks around age 28 and decreases thereafter, which contradicts evolutionary theories and psychological research that would have suggested a decline closer to the end of a woman’s reproductive phase between 40 and 50. Contrary to conventional wisdom or popular myth, take your pick, it would seem most women in their late 30s to early 40s are not as affected by the tolling of the biological clock as society would have us believe.
“Love, it turns out, is not entirely ageless; it’s nuanced,” says Laura Botzet from Göttingen University’s Department of Biological Personality Psychology. “A woman’s age is related to certain aspects of her desired partner, such as the preference for partners with stronger parenting intentions or the ideal age of a partner. These insights are exciting because they challenge conventional notions of how age is linked to the way women picture the partner of their dreams.”
Is there a takeout from this study for singles? Kindness will always be attractive. And confidence, at least for older women, doesn’t hurt either. Basically, they–women–are not asking for much.
