Sorry Mel Gibson, but what women want most is not a man who can secretly listen to their thoughts and fulfill their every desire.
What women want most is a man who can pay the bills.
According to a Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday, women rank having a steady job above religious beliefs and views on raising kids when it comes to choosing a husband, CNN Money reported.
About 80 percent of women said they want a husband with a job, followed by 62 percent who said they want a spouse with similar ideas about children and a mere 31 percent who wanted the same religious and moral values.
Women seeking a Prince Charming with a job wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that male participation in the workforce has decreased in the last five decades, the survey found. In 1960, 93 percent of men ages 25 to 34 were employed, compared to 82 percent of men the same ages in 2012, according to Time.com.
The situation gets worse. Women are flooding the labor force, and even though there may be more single men than women, there aren't enough single men with a job to go around.
"If all never-married young women in 2012 wanted to find a young employed man who had also never been married, 9 percent of them would fail," writes Kim Parker and Wendy Wang, the study authors.
On a side note, China has the same problem in reverse. Due to cultural reasons, experts predict there will be 30 million more unmarried men than women by 2020.
The same Pew survey also found that the percentage of American adults who have never been married is at a historic high, indicating that marriage is not as valued as it was among young adults in 1960. Most respondents said they were still single because they haven't found "the one," while others said it was due to financial reasons or because they weren't ready.
For those who are in a relationship, instead of signing a marriage license, many young couples are signing the lease to their apartment first. So does this mean all Millennials are doomed to stay single for eternity? Not necessarily, according to Parker.
"Cohabitation is much less common than marriage and cohabiting relationships are much less stable than marriages," Parker said according to Time.com. "It's hard to imagine marriage being replaced any time soon."
