Some Like Them Hot: How Germans Construct Male Attractiveness

Abstract

This study investigates what makes a man attractive to a woman in Germany, using a sample of 691 German citizens aged 18 to 92, collected in 2006, randomly sampled from resident registration lists in four representative regions. We test the idea that attractiveness is socially constructed and create measures of attractiveness using agreements of respondents to 16 statements. The three dimensions that emerged were breadwinning ability, relationship skill, and physical attractiveness, which can overlap. We chose the three most common combinations: 19% of respondents considered only relationship skill as important, 25% valued relationship skill and physical attractiveness, and 31% valued all three. Binary logistic regression indicated that Germans differ on what they consider important based on gender, birth cohort, education, earnings, job status and religion, with the biggest predictor being gender. Men were more likely than women to expect that women want the man who “has it all.”