I think it is about time we update some figures on what it takes to be marriage material in Singapore.

According to evolutionary psychologist David Buss, women across multiple cultures value economic resources, earnings potential and ambition much more than men when selecting their mates. This is why the world is full of examples of rich and powerful old men marrying younger trophy wives but you can hardly find examples of rich, wealthy women marrying athletic and young men.

In fact, evolutionary psychologists are specific enough to say that women desire men to be in the top 70% percentile of earning power compared to male peers.

Getting statistics on this is a little challenging and we will need to get data from different sources and make a series of assumptions before a useful estimate can be derived.

The first source of data is to get household income statistics per member for 2018 which pegged