How Do Men and Women Differ When Choosing a Mate?

Korean women's ideal husband is 177.51 cm tall, makes W43.48 million (US$1=W1,126) a year, holds a four-year university degree, and works as a civil servant or for a public corporation, according to a survey.

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The woman that Korean men want to settle down with is 163.63 cm tall, earns W31.61 million and works as a civil servant or for a public corporation. The majority of single men said that the level of education for their future spouses was not a key concern.

Matchmaking firm Duo surveyed 976 singles -- 494 men and 482 women -- between the ages of 20 and 39 from November 1-15 regarding their ideal mates, and Choi In-chul, a psychology professor at Seoul National University, analyzed the data. The results were released on Thursday.

Both sexes put the highest priority on personality when choosing their spouses, with 31.2 percent of men and 29.9 percent of women citing this. The next most important factors for men were physical appearance (22.3 percent), profession (9.7 percent), values (8.1 percent) and financial status (7.1 percent). For women, the list started with financial status (22.8 percent), profession (11.4 percent), family background (9.9 percent) and physical appearance (9 percent).

After civil servant or employee at a state-run company, the next most popular lines of work favored by men for their ideal spouse were teaching (12.2 percent), office jobs (12 percent) and financial or banking jobs (7.3 percent).

Women preferred their mates to work in the finance industry (9 percent), or as an office worker (8.3 percent). Teaching at a school, which single men cited as the preferred job for their bride-to-be since 2007, dropped to second place.

There were few changes in terms of expectations of future spouses' educational background. Almost half of the male respondents (42.3 percent) said this was not a major consideration, while a majority of female respondents (51.5 percent) wanted to wed a four-year university degree holder.

The annual salaries women preferred their men to make was W43.48 million, up W60,000 from last year, while men hoped their future wives could earn W31.61 million a year, down W490,000 from 2010.

The height preferences on both sides were almost unchanged from a decade ago.