The gender difference was less stark when the results grouped those who rated a characteristic either "essential" or "desirable", but the pattern was nonetheless the same. Brendan Zietsch, a researcher in evolutionary psychology at the University of Queensland, said the findings were "very unsurprising", with numerous studies demonstrating similar results. When it comes to choosing a mate, both men and women try to "maximise their genetic contribution to future generations", Dr Zietsch said. "Men can do this by partnering with women possessing cues of youth and fertility, and so have evolved to find such cues attractive and important, whereas women can do this by partnering with men with resources to maximise the survival and mating prospects of their children."

Sounds familiar, but the results get more interesting when we start to break them down. Age It's sometimes said that people get pickier with age. You've been around the block a few times, you're more confident about who you are and what you want, and you can't be bothered putting up with other people's crap any more. Not so, according to this study. Call it tolerance, call it flexibility. Maybe it's just plain old realism. The older we get, the lower our standards, the authors found. (With the notable exception of older women and money. More on this in a moment.) Good looks mattered less to older people, while older men were also less fussy about having a partner with a slender body, according to the results.

"[O]lder men and women feel the need to make a trade-off in traits they value because of overall declining health and physical attractiveness associated with ageing," the authors write. In other words, older people feel less desirable, so they demand less from a partner too, which seems pretty fair. A second explanation might be that good looks become less important with age because we shift our efforts away from making babies and "towards parenting, grandparenting and building social status", according to the paper.

Older men also placed less importance than younger men on a partner with a steady income. But the opposite was true of women. Women's preference for a man with a steady income was weakest at age 18, increased up to age 40, then slowly declined. However, it remained higher among 56- to 65-year-olds than 18- to 25-year-olds, the study found. Money and education Men who were wealthier and more educated placed more importance on having a good looking or slender partner, but showed little difference in preference when it came to partner income. In fact, wealthier men placed less emphasis than other men on a partner with a steady income.

On the other hand, women who were wealthier were pickier about both looks and money. They placed more importance than other women on a partner's good looks, as well as a steady income and making a lot of money. Education made little difference to either gender's preferences when it came to money. That women with money place more importance on men with money may seem counter-intuitive. Presumably, a woman with her own money is less in need of a well-resourced partner. What these findings may suggest, however, is that both men and women with higher socio-economic status want partners who enhance their social prestige, the authors write.

For men, that means a partner who is good looking and slender; for women, it's a man with money. Appearance satisfaction As might be expected, people who feel confident about their own appearance are more selective – but only when it comes to looks, the study found. There was little difference within genders when it came to a steady income or making a lot of money.

"People tend to prefer partners similar to themselves, so someone who thinks they themselves are good looking will place greater importance on good looks in a partner," Dr Zietsch said. 'Chemistry' versus good looks Significantly, there was no real difference between men and women when it came to wanting a partner who is specifically "attractive to me", as opposed to generally good looking. This might have something to do with that tricky thing we call "chemistry". And chemistry is related to what we non-scientists often casually refer to as "leagues" (as in, "she's out of his league") or weight categories ("he's punching above his weight").

Here's the lengthy explanation: "People develop idiosyncratic preferences that cause them to funnel their mating efforts towards more attainable targets who are more likely to reciprocate their interest and are less likely to be mate-poached away by rivals," the authors write. Now, the blunt one: less desirable people learn to focus on other less desirable people. What everyone wants While studies like this seem to confirm the most tired clichés of what men and women want, it's worth bearing in mind that what people say they want doesn't always match up with whom they choose. "There is debate among scientists about whether stated preferences are meaningful, for example, whether they predict real partner choices," Dr Zietsch said.

And perhaps most importantly, although previous research suggests these overall gender differences may be universal, it also points to universal similarities. For example, one of the most widely-cited studies of partner preferences – David Buss' 1989 survey of more than 10,000 men and women from 37 cultures – famously found that, in all cultures, women valued resources and men valued physical attractiveness. However, Professor Buss – now a professor of psychology at the University of Texas – and his team also found that certain other traits were universally desired. "Things like intelligence, kindness, dependability, emotional stability, good health; also mutual attraction and love," Professor Buss told ABC Radio National. "These were the things that both men and women everywhere wanted."