An association between women's physical attractiveness and the length of their reproductive career in a prospectively longitudinal nationally representative sample.

Abstract

Why is physical attractiveness more important for women's mate value in long-term mating than in short-term mating? This article replicates Bovet et al.'s (Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 2018; 31:229-238) recent finding that physically attractive women have a later expected age of menopause. I analyzed the prospectively longitudinal, nationally representative sample of women in the National Child Development Study, applying t-test and multiple regression analyses. Analyses showed that girls rated physically attractive at age 7 underwent menarche 3.12 months earlier than other girls, and they had 32% smaller odds of having undergone menopause before age 51. The results suggest that more physically attractive women have longer reproductive careers, explaining why physical attractiveness may be a more important determinant of women's mate value in long-term mating than in short-term mating. Women's physical attractiveness predicts the timing of menarche and menopause, thereby the length of their reproductive careers.