Women who have access to good healthcare prefer girlier men

British researchers showed 4,500 16-to-40-year-old women from 30 different countries pairs of images; each duo was a digitally altered version of the same male face. In the side-by-side photos, one image was subtly made to look more masculine, the other more feminine. The women were asked which they prefer.

Women were shown two images of the same face side by side, but one picture was very subtly altered so it had more masculine traits, for example a bigger jaw and heavier and lower brow line, and the other was oppositely altered so it had more feminine traits.

They found a direct correlation between the quality of health care and the choice of male.

Using statistics from the World Health Organization, the researchers found a direct correlation between countries with good health care and a preference for men with softer features. For example, 68 percent of the women in Sweden preferred the girlier-looking man, whereas 55 percent of Brazilian ladies picked the more masculine-looking face.

"The results suggests that as health care improves, more masculine men fall out of favour," said the lead author and psychologist Dr Lisa DeBruine.

Dr DeBruine said: “We found that women from countries with poorer health, which have higher mortality and increased incidence of communicable disease, were more attracted to masculine faces than women living in countries with better health."

You know, this makes me wonder what the healthcare is like in Arkansas (yeah, I really didn't know how to respond to this info).