Age, education, and income are surprisingly weak predictors of mate preferences

A new study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior finds that people’s preferences for desirable and undesirable traits in romantic partners are only weakly tied to their age, income, education, or number of past relationships. Women were generally more selective than men across a broad range of characteristics. But more than any objective factor, how desirable people believed themselves to be played the strongest role—albeit still a small one—in shaping their expectations for a partner.

Prior research has shown that people are generally attracted to traits like kindness, intelligence, and physical attractiveness, while avoiding characteristics such as arrogance or hostility. Much of this work has focused on preferences alone, but this study also explored what people actively want to avoid in a partner. Drawing from evolutionary theory, the authors aimed to test whether people who perceive themselves as more desirable—or who score higher on other “mate value” indicators—set higher standards for both what they want and what they avoid in a romantic partner.

“We were interested in this topic because it is a common assumption in evolutionary psychology that certain ‘objective’ characteristics, such as age, education, and income, are associated with mating success and, consequently, mate preferences,” said study author Zsófia Csajbók, an assistant professor of psychology at Charles University.

“From an evolutionary perspective, younger individuals are considered more desirable due to their larger reproductive reserve. Similarly, individuals with higher education are assumed to be more intelligent and have a greater capacity for financial success, making them more desirable as partners. Additionally, those who are perceived as more desirable are often thought to have higher mating standards.”

“However, previous research has often shown weak associations between these ‘objective’ characteristics and mate preferences. One reason for these weak associations is that earlier studies often lacked sufficient diversity in their data, which may have hindered the demonstration of expected associations. Our aim was to show that, even with a nationally representative and fairly diverse sample, these associations remain relatively weak, although they are in the expected direction.”

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The study involved a nationally representative online sample of 2,280 adults aged 18 to 50 living in Czechia. Participants completed a comprehensive survey that included questions about their own demographics (such as income, education, and relationship history), self-perceived desirability as a partner, and what they wanted or did not want in an ideal partner. The researchers asked participants to rate how much they valued seven desirable traits—like warmth, attractiveness, and intelligence—and how much they wanted to avoid eight undesirable traits—like abusiveness, depression, or uncleanliness.

The researchers also examined factors associated with different mating strategies, such as the number of sexual or romantic partners a person had, whether they were currently in a relationship, and the number of children they had. These life outcomes were used to infer broader mating orientations and real-world indicators of mate value. Statistical models were used to analyze how these variables predicted people’s romantic preferences and aversions, and whether these patterns differed by sex.

In line with previous research, Csajbók and her colleagues found that women placed more importance than men on traits like warmth, social status, and dominance, while men placed more value on physical attractiveness. In terms of undesirable traits, women were more strongly averse to partners who were unambitious, hostile, arrogant, clingy, abusive, or depressed. Across both sexes, the most valued trait was warmth, and the least valued was social status. For aversions, hostility and abusiveness were the most undesirable traits, while clinginess was seen as the least problematic.

While these findings aligned with prior research and evolutionary theory—where women are expected to be more selective due to the higher biological costs of reproduction—the most striking outcome was how little any of the variables predicted people’s preferences. Self-perceived mate value explained about 1% of the variance in men’s preferences and 2% in women’s. When all measured factors were combined—including education, income, relationship history, and age—they still explained only 3% of the variation in men’s preferences and 5% in women’s.

“Mate desirability and mate preferences are subjective and difficult to predict using objective indicators,” Csajbók told PsyPost. “This could be seen as good news. How desirable we and others perceive ourselves to be is highly subjective and doesn’t operate in a simple, rational way. Factors like age, education, or income do not strongly predict whether people will have high mating standards.”

Interestingly, desirable traits were better predicted than undesirable ones, and women’s preferences were more strongly associated with their own characteristics than men’s were. For example, women who rated themselves as more desirable also placed higher importance on a partner’s attractiveness, passion, and dominance. Education and household income were also more predictive of women’s mate preferences than men’s, with more educated or higher-earning women expecting more from their partners—particularly in terms of intelligence and emotional stability.

Nonlinear associations were also explored, such as whether preferences changed as people aged or as their education increased. These effects were present but modest. Age had only a trivial impact on mate preferences across the 18–50 age range. Education showed a slightly stronger association, especially among women, who showed less tolerance for undesirable traits such as hostility, unattractiveness, and depression as their education level increased. Self-perceived mate value also showed some nonlinear patterns, especially among women, with preferences for traits like dominance or stability rising more steeply at higher levels of perceived desirability.

The researchers also explored how relationship experiences influenced preferences. For instance, those with more sexual or romantic partners reported higher expectations in traits like passion and lower tolerance for traits like depression. But the longer people were in a relationship, the more their expectations seemed to relax, particularly for traits like attractiveness or dominance. Women with more children also showed lower expectations for certain traits, including attractiveness and intellect.

Despite these patterns, the study consistently found that most of the variability in mate preferences and aversions remained unexplained. Even with a large and diverse sample, demographic characteristics and mating history accounted for only a small fraction of the differences in what people want—or don’t want—in a partner.

“Not having the ‘objectively’ desirable traits (such as those often assumed by stereotypes) does not necessarily predetermine our mating success,” Csajbók explained. “People have a variety of reasons for setting their preferences, and mate choice and relationships are likely more complex than can be explained by just a few selection criteria.”

But the study, like all research, has some limitations. Although the sample was diverse and nationally representative, it was limited to people in Czechia and mostly heterosexual. The use of a single-item measure for self-perceived mate value may also limit the precision of those findings.

The researchers also note that their design did not distinguish between short-term and long-term partner preferences, which might affect how people prioritize different traits. They intentionally avoided this distinction to prevent introducing artificial categories that might not reflect participants’ real-life intentions.

“It is crucial to conduct this kind of research using large, sufficiently diverse datasets,” Csajbók said. “Much of the existing evidence in this area is based on small samples of university students from the United States, which makes it difficult to generalize. Our study, conducted in the Czech Republic, is from an industrialized, developed country, but it is culturally different from the majority of studies in this field.”

The study, “Observed Aspects of Mate Value and Sociosexuality Account for Mate Preferences: Data from a Large, Representative Study from Czechia,” was authored by Zsófia Csajbók, Zuzana Štěrbová, Peter K. Jonason, Lucie Jelínková, Jakub Binter, and Jan Havlíček.