Only 5% of Women Require Partners to Be 183 cm Tall... 85% Say "178 cm Is Fine"

Survey of 1,182 Norwegian Adults on Partner Standards
85% of Women Accept Men of Below-Average Height
"The Higher the Standards, the Longer People Remain Single"

A study has found that women’s standards for a partner’s appearance are not as high as commonly believed.

Photo of a couple to aid understanding of the article. Pixabay

On September 4 (local time), the UK tabloid The Sun cited a paper by a research team at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), reporting that "Women's standards for men's physical attractiveness are lower than expected." The research team, led by Dr. Marius Stavang from NTNU’s Department of Psychology, surveyed 1,182 Norwegian adults aged 18 to 60, and published the findings in the international journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

The research team did not ask for an ideal type, but rather about the minimum acceptable threshold. Participants were asked to specify the lowest acceptable level they would tolerate for 18 different traits such as intelligence, maturity, personality, financial capacity, family orientation, physical attractiveness, and others.

Low Minimum Thresholds for Both Body Shape and Height... Standards for Facial Attractiveness Differ by Gender

According to the study results, 35% of women said they would be willing to date a man with a body type considered below average. Only 23% listed "a good body" as a minimum requirement. When it came to height, only 5% responded that their partner must be at least 183cm tall, whereas as many as 85% were open to dating men shorter than 178cm. Considering the average height of adult Norwegian men is around 180cm, this means the vast majority of respondents said they could accept men at or below average height. While nearly half of the men said their partner’s face must be above average, only 35% of women said the same.

The level of standards was also linked to actual dating experiences. For men, the higher their standard for physical attractiveness, the longer they remained single, and the shorter their relationships lasted. For women, being more selective on partner criteria in general led to longer periods spent in casual relationships, and there was an increase in responses saying, "I ended up alone because I was attracted to someone who didn’t want a relationship."

"Expectations Higher Than What One Can Actually Attain"

This pattern remained even after accounting for respondents’ own traits, degree of desire for a relationship, and how actively they searched for a partner. The research team concluded, "Both men's standards for appearance and women’s overall criteria generally exceed the level of partners they could realistically attract."

Dr. Stavang said, "Women’s standards for physical attraction did not appear to be high," adding, "For some criteria, their threshold was even lower than the expected population average." Sex expert George Curl told The Sun, "These statistics are not at all surprising," adding, "Those who cannot rely on good looks tend to put much more effort into being entertaining." He also commented, "Women generally do not want men who spend more time in front of the mirror than they do."

This study was conducted in 2023 in collaboration with Norwegian public broadcaster NRK and polling firm Norstat, and was officially published in an academic journal this time. Based on this survey, NRK also aired a documentary titled "Singelgåten (The Puzzle of Singleness)" in August last year. The seven-part series featured five singles on the verge of giving up on relationships, alongside scenes of Dr. Stavang comparing their selectiveness to the study sample.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, dating agency Duo surveyed 2,000 single men and women aged 25 to 44 in the Seoul metropolitan area and announced in 2024 that the ideal husband’s height came out to 178.3cm in their "Ideal Spouse Survey." While this figure reflects desired traits for an ideal type, not minimum conditions, and therefore differs from the Norwegian study, the standard has remained in the 178cm range since 2021.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.