Mwanapropaganda
JF-Expert Member
- Aug 19, 2014
- 4,235
- 2,512
Tall, dark and handsome may not be the ideal man after all. According to new findings, short men make better husbands. The new study claims that shorter men also do more housework, earn more money and are less likely to divorce you. Women will need to stop looking up and start looking down. If shorter men are really this perfect, women should be throwing their high heels into the nearest bin and looking to 'downsize' their partner.
Tall men have traditionally been seen as physically dominant and better protectors than their shorter counterparts. Women like to be with someone taller and broader than them. Not any more - after reading these new findings, tall men will have to work harder to impress. Dalton Conley, a sociologist at NYU, and Abigail Weitzman, a PhD candidate, used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics - a University of Michigan project that's been collecting demographic data on 5,000 families for almost 50 years - to look at how a man's height affects different areas of his relationship after the initial dating period.
They looked at two sets of data, from 1986 and 2009, and identified 3,033 heterosexual couples. (They restricted their sample to men between the ages of 23 and 45 cohabiting with a woman). The men ranged in height from 4'6" to 7'.They categorised the men into groups: 'Short' men were defined as 5'6" or less in 1986, 5'7" or below in 2009; 'tall' men were at least 6'1" in 1986 and 6'2" in 2009. The findings showed that short men have a harder time getting married and thus tend to get married later in life.
If and when they do get married, though, short men are less likely to get divorced. Divorce rates for short men were 32pc lower than for tall men. Why are short men better at marriage? Apparently, they do more housework. They do eight hours and 28 minutes of it per week - which makes up about 28pc of the total amount - compared to tall men, who do seven hours and 30 minutes. A lot can be done in that 58-minute gap. A wife could be made very happy with an extra 58 minutes of housework per week. But that's not all. Tall men beware, you are not just being out-worked in the home, you are also being out-earned in the workplace.
The research found 78pc of short men out- earn their partners, compared to 71pc of tall men. Short men are more likely to end up with women who are older and less educated: 21pc of the short men in the survey were with women who hadn't completed secondary education, compared with only 12pc of tall men. The wives of the short men may not be as well educated as those of the taller men, but they might just be a lot smarter at choosing a husband. Perhaps short men feel they have to try harder because height is traditionally related to masculinity. Maybe that's why short men are pushing themselves more and coming out on top in the other aspects of relationships like income and housework.
Whatever the reason, it's making them a whole lot more attractive. It seems, though, that women still want to be with men who are taller than them. When a 5'4" inch man added five inches to his height on the OK Cupid dating site, his response rate jumped from 16 to 29. Almost half of women restrict their online dating searches to men who are taller than them. Only 13.5pc of men ruled out taller women. Why do women want to be with tall men? The main reason cited is because women feel safer, more secure, more feminine and delicate with taller men.
Some women also say that they want to be able to wear high heels and reach up when they are hugging their partner. But after hearing how much harder short men work at relationships, I think there may be a change of heart for many women. Ditching your stilettos for a man who does more housework and earns more seems like a good compromise. I'm off to tell my taller husband that he has 58 minutes of extra housework to do, or I'm trading him in for a shorty.
Cc:Girls wote wa MMU.
Tall men have traditionally been seen as physically dominant and better protectors than their shorter counterparts. Women like to be with someone taller and broader than them. Not any more - after reading these new findings, tall men will have to work harder to impress. Dalton Conley, a sociologist at NYU, and Abigail Weitzman, a PhD candidate, used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics - a University of Michigan project that's been collecting demographic data on 5,000 families for almost 50 years - to look at how a man's height affects different areas of his relationship after the initial dating period.
They looked at two sets of data, from 1986 and 2009, and identified 3,033 heterosexual couples. (They restricted their sample to men between the ages of 23 and 45 cohabiting with a woman). The men ranged in height from 4'6" to 7'.They categorised the men into groups: 'Short' men were defined as 5'6" or less in 1986, 5'7" or below in 2009; 'tall' men were at least 6'1" in 1986 and 6'2" in 2009. The findings showed that short men have a harder time getting married and thus tend to get married later in life.
If and when they do get married, though, short men are less likely to get divorced. Divorce rates for short men were 32pc lower than for tall men. Why are short men better at marriage? Apparently, they do more housework. They do eight hours and 28 minutes of it per week - which makes up about 28pc of the total amount - compared to tall men, who do seven hours and 30 minutes. A lot can be done in that 58-minute gap. A wife could be made very happy with an extra 58 minutes of housework per week. But that's not all. Tall men beware, you are not just being out-worked in the home, you are also being out-earned in the workplace.
The research found 78pc of short men out- earn their partners, compared to 71pc of tall men. Short men are more likely to end up with women who are older and less educated: 21pc of the short men in the survey were with women who hadn't completed secondary education, compared with only 12pc of tall men. The wives of the short men may not be as well educated as those of the taller men, but they might just be a lot smarter at choosing a husband. Perhaps short men feel they have to try harder because height is traditionally related to masculinity. Maybe that's why short men are pushing themselves more and coming out on top in the other aspects of relationships like income and housework.
Whatever the reason, it's making them a whole lot more attractive. It seems, though, that women still want to be with men who are taller than them. When a 5'4" inch man added five inches to his height on the OK Cupid dating site, his response rate jumped from 16 to 29. Almost half of women restrict their online dating searches to men who are taller than them. Only 13.5pc of men ruled out taller women. Why do women want to be with tall men? The main reason cited is because women feel safer, more secure, more feminine and delicate with taller men.
Some women also say that they want to be able to wear high heels and reach up when they are hugging their partner. But after hearing how much harder short men work at relationships, I think there may be a change of heart for many women. Ditching your stilettos for a man who does more housework and earns more seems like a good compromise. I'm off to tell my taller husband that he has 58 minutes of extra housework to do, or I'm trading him in for a shorty.
Cc:Girls wote wa MMU.
