Women look for well-paid job in partner

What women really want? No doubt, it's very difficult to guess, but a new study claims that they look for a well-paid job first in their partners.

According to the study by Cologne-based Institute for the German Economy, in today's world, women are increasingly using money or a healthy bank balance as overriding criteria for choosing their partners.

With women getting better jobs, they are looking for their men to have a spending power to match, says the study.

For their study, researchers carried out a survey in which women respondents said they wanted to avoid stress and confrontation over big differences in earnings, Britain's the Daily Mail reported.

The findings showed that the number of households in which one person earns much more than the other has decreased in the 10 years between 1998 and 2008.

And, at the same time, couples with two average or high earners increased from 27.9 per cent to 30.5 per cent.

Couples that included a high earner and a low earner in the relationship decreased by 2.8 per cent from 28.6 to 25.8

per cent in the same time span, say German researchers.

In another controversial study by London School of Economics Professor Dr Catherine Hakim, more women were said to prefer to marry a man earning more than they do.

According to the poll, 64 per cent said they aspire to find a husband bringing home more money.

None wanted to marry a man who earned less.

Dr Hakim claimed more women were choosing to 'marry up' by picking wealthy men for their spouse than in the 1940s.

After decades of gender equality campaigning many women now find it hard to admit that they want to be a housewife more than they want a successful career of their own, she said.