Numbers aren't neutral

A S Paneerselvan in The Hindu



Analysing data without providing sufficient context is dangerous


An inherent challenge in journalism is to meet deadlines without compromising on quality, while sticking to the word limit. However, brevity takes a toll when it comes to reporting on surveys, indexes, and big data. Let me examine three sets of stories which were based on surveys and carried prominently by this newspaper, to understand the limits of presenting data without providing comprehensive context.

Three reports

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), Oxfam’s report titled ‘Reward Work, Not Wealth’, and the World Bank’s ease of doing business (EoDB) rankings have been widely reported, commented on, and editorialised. In most cases, the numbers and rankings were presented as neutral evaluations; they were not seen as data originating from institutions that have political underpinnings. Data become meaningful only when the methodology of data collection is spelt out in clear terms.

Every time I read surveys, indexes, and big data, I look for at least three basic parameters to understand the numbers: the sample size, the sample questionnaire, and the methodology. The sample size used indicates the robustness of the study, the questionnaire reveals whether there are leading questions, and the methodology reveals the rigour in the study. As a reporter, there were instances where I failed to mention these details in my resolve to stick to the word limit. Those were my mistakes.

The ASER study covering specific districts in States is about children’s schooling status. It attempts to measure children’s abilities with regard to basic reading and writing. It is a significant study as it gives us an insight into some of the problems with our educational system. However, we must be aware of the fact that these figures are restricted only to the districts in which the survey was conducted. It cannot be extrapolated as a State-wide sample, nor is it fair to rank States based on how specific districts fare in the study. A news item, “Report highlights India’s digital divide” (Jan. 19, 2018), conflated these figures.

For instance, the district surveyed in Kerala was Ernakulam, which is an urban district; in West Bengal it was South 24 Parganas, a complex district that stretches from metropolitan Kolkata to remote villages at the mouth of the Bay of Bengal. How can we compare these two districts with Odisha’s Khordha, Jharkhand’s Purbi Singhbhum and Bihar’s Muzaffarpur? It could be irresistible for a reporter, who accessed the data, to paint a larger picture based on these specific numbers. But we may not learn anything when we compare oranges and apples.

Questionable methodology

Oxfam, in the ‘Reward Work, Not Wealth’ report, used a methodology that has been questioned by many economists. Inequality is calculated on the basis of “net assets”. The economists point out that in this method, the poorest are not those living with very little resources, but young professionals who own no assets and with a high educational loan. Inequality is the elephant in the room which we cannot ignore. But Oxfam’s figures seem to mimic the huge notional loss figures put out by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Readers should know that Oxfam’s study has drawn its figures from disparate sources such as the Global Wealth Report by Credit Suisse, the Forbes’ billionaires list, adjusting last year’s figure using the average annual U.S. Consumer Price Index inflation rate from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, the World Bank’s household survey data, and an online survey in 10 countries.

When the World Bank announced the EoDB index last year, there was euphoria in India. However, this newspaper’s editorial “Moving up” (Nov. 2, 2017), which looked at India’s surge in the latest World Bank ranking from the 130th position to the 100th in a year, cautioned and asked the government, which has great orators in its ranks, to be a better listener. In hindsight, this position was vindicated when the World Bank’s chief economist, Paul Romer, said that he could no longer defend the integrity of changes made to the methodology and that the Bank would recalculate the national rankings of business competitiveness going back to at least four years. Readers would have appreciated the FAQ section (“Recalculating ease of doing business”, Jan. 25) that explained this controversy in some detail, had it looked at India’s ranking using the old methodology.

Lessons from the IPL Auction 2018

Suresh Menon in The Hindu




Both Neville Cardus and C.L.R. James asked whether cricket is an art, and answered in different ways. Cardus compared cricket to music while for James it belonged alongside theatre, opera and dance. Thus, art, yes, but the performing arts, and for what happens on the field.

It is now safe to say that cricket belongs to the visual and plastic arts — painting and sculpture — but not for what happens on the field. The IPL auction has added another dimension with the question: what is the value of a player? Is he like a Jeff Koons or an M.F. Hussain?

Is Jayadev Unadkat worth ₹11.5 crores? Is Hashim Amla not worth anything at all? The comparison with art is inevitable. A painting is worth exactly what someone is prepared to pay for it. In his book The Value of Art: Money, Power, Beauty, the art dealer Michael Findlay gives a more sophisticated explanation.

“The commercial value of art,” he says, “is based on collective intentionality. Human stipulation and declaration create and sustain the commercial value.” Replace “art” with “cricketer” and that still holds. If, based on sports metrics and private algorithms, Mumbai Indians think Krunal Pandya is worth ₹8.8 crores, you cannot argue.

On a weekend when every Test-playing country was engaged in an international, the focus was on a hotel ballroom in Bangalore. You can read all kinds of meaning into this. “It will be a distraction,” South Africa’s captain Faf du Plessis had said earlier. Kamlesh Nagarkoti, at the Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand said, “I went and sat inside the washroom even as my bidding was going on.” It went on and on and didn’t stop till it had reached ₹3.2 crores.

It was possible to switch channels between the auction and the incredible Indian performance at the Johannesburg Test. Virat Kohli certainly wasn’t distracted — his ₹17 crores was already in the bank. It would be interesting to discover which event garnered the more eyeballs; that should tell us the direction the sport is taking. In The Australian, Gideon Haigh wrote a piece headlined: IPL auction now the real centre of world cricket.

A union minister tweeted that most players didn’t deserve half the amounts they were bought for. Politicians are allergic to such transparent contract negotiations. However, what he and others find difficult to deal with is the fact that the market decides value. And the market can be cruel and ageist, often casually dispensing with high-performing players of the past. It is influenced by the ego of the bidder too. Monetary value is not always the same as cricketing worth.

Part of the confusion is caused by top players going unsold. In the recent Test, Amla and Ishant Sharma put in inspiring performances, yet find themselves with no role in the IPL. The way to reconcile this is to acknowledge that IPL and Test cricket are as different from each other — tactically, physically, psychologically, emotionally — as soccer and cricket or kabaddi and tennis. They just happen to use the same equipment.

It took the franchises some time to realise this. The inaugural auction had nothing to go by and established Test players were most sought after. Royal Challengers had Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis, Wasim Jaffer, Shivnarine Chanderpaul. Today they would have to depend on pity-selection by friends in the franchises, if at all. Cricket has changed, the IPL most of all, and auctions, even if not fully professional yet are headed in that direction. Data is king. How good are you between overs 11 and 16, for example?

Analysts caught off guard by 41% Capita share drop

Cat Rutter Pooley in The Financial Times

There may be some red-faced analysts across the City this morning. 

Only two out of 16 analysts polled by Bloomberg had a sell rating on Capita before today, when its shares plummeted 41 per cent on a profit warning and planned £700m rights issue. 

Of the rest, 11 had a hold rating and three a buy rating. 

One of those buy recommendations came from Numis, which issued its note on the company two weeks ago. 

Then, Numis described a meeting with the new Capita chief executive as “positive”, noting that: 

 It is easy to be critical of the past, but his observations on some of the structural and cultural issues at Capita highlighted some fundamental problems, but also material opportunities. We were encouraged by [Jonathan Lewis’s] comments on the need for great focus, cost reductions (whilst also re-investing for growth), and need to focus on cash. 

Numis declined to comment immediately on whether it was reviewing the recommendation in light of the company’s update. 

Jefferies, which has also had a ‘buy’ recommendation on the stock, characterised Wednesday’s announcement as a “kitchen sinking”, or effort to cram all the bad news out at once. The revelations could generate a 40 per cent decline in earnings expectations for the full year, it said, adding that the revenue environment remained “lacklustre”. 

Shares are current trading around 210p, down 40 per cent. 

Meanwhile, the ripples from Capita’s share price drop are leaking across the outsourcing industry. Serco slipped 3 per cent, and Mitie was down 2.4 per cent at pixel time.

Shashi Tharoor "Why I am a Hindu"

Rail: frustration grows with Britain’s fragmented network

Jonathan Ford and Gill Plimmer in The Financial Times

Craig Johnstone checked tickets and train doors for more than 30 years. But if the job did not change, the uniform did: five times he donned new colours bearing fresh slogans as a different company took over running the Leeds to Manchester and Carlisle service. 

“Every uniform gets a little tighter — and I can’t fit into the old ones,” he says. “They change the roles and description and then they change them back again. That’s all the rail operating companies do. It’s continuous change, but all that changes are the colours and the corporate brands.” 

Change was supposed to mean more than just a new cap and blazer when John Major’s Conservative government released its plan to split up British Rail in 1992. Then UK ministers outlined a vision of private companies bidding for franchises and bringing fresh ideas, dynamic management and innovation. 

“More competition, greater efficiency and a wider choice of services more closely tailored to what customers want,” proclaimed the 21-page white paper that drove forward a privatisation that had been too controversial even for Margaret Thatcher, his predecessor, to risk.

Two decades on, passenger numbers have more than doubled since the last year under British Rail. The UK network saw 1.7bn passenger journeys in 2016-17, against 735m in 1994-95. After decades of decline, Britain’s trains are busier than at any time since the first world war. 

But behind the numbers lies a conundrum: how much of this is due to the benefits of privatisation, rather than demographic factors such as the shift to the suburbs, increasing urban congestion and a rising population? 

Privatisation has certainly led to more train services. According to an EU study in 2013, the UK’s trains and tracks are now more intensively used than any other developed European market bar the Netherlands, and this has undoubtedly contributed to the growth in passengers. 

Investment is up too; it is running at around four times the £1.6bn a year it averaged in the late 1980s, with £925m coming from the private sector last year, mainly to fund new rolling stock. 

“Privatisation reduced the malign influence of HM Treasury which wouldn’t allow a proper investment programme,” says Lord Freud, a former banker who advised on rail privatisation. 

But it is not obvious that two decades of private ownership have led to similar advances in service quality or have made the network more financially sustainable and secure. 

“It’s very hard for people to travel around and not suffer from the cracks in the system,” says Christian Wolmar, a train historian. “It’s everything, from knowing who to buy a ticket from to the signalling failure that delays the train to the lack of information when your train is cancelled. It’s hard to know which is worse — fragmentation or privatisation — but I’d probably say fragmentation.” 

The break-up of the network is perhaps the most hotly debated legacy of the sell-off. Instead of pushing British Rail into the private sector as a single regulated monopoly akin to water or electricity, the government chose to break it into three components of track, rolling stock and train operators, and then to sell it in no less than 100 pieces between 1995 and 1997. 

This process has not made the network cheaper to operate. The cost of running the UK’s railways is 40 per cent higher than it is in the rest of Europe, according to a 2011 government report by Sir Roy McNulty, the former boss of UK aviation group Short Brothers who has long experience in transport regulation. 

“The train you catch is owned by a bank, leased to a private company, which has a franchise from the Department for Transport to run it on this track owned by Network Rail, all regulated by another office, and all paid for by taxpayers or passengers,” says John Stittle, a professor of accounting at Essex university. “The complexity is expensive.” 

Since privatisation, the bill has mainly been shared between the taxpayer and the passenger. The contribution from the state has almost doubled from £2.3bn in 1996 to £4.2bn in real terms in 2016-17, despite a conscious decision in recent years to push more of the cost on to users’ shoulders. Ticket prices have risen: they are now 25 per cent higher in real terms than in 1995 and 30 per cent higher than in France, Holland, Sweden and Switzerland. The latest average rise in fares of 3.4 per cent, announced on New Year’s Day, was greeted with outrage. 

Privatisation was supposed to unleash efficiencies that would justify the returns private operators demand for their services. So why, more than two decades in, have the UK’s railways not delivered more? 

Despite the vastly expanded usage, the network’s costs have not obviously come down relative to its income. According to the 2011 report, unit costs per passenger kilometre were roughly 20p in 2010, much the same as they were in 1996. 

One reason, suggest the critics, is that privatisation never really took root. The network’s 2,500 stations and 32,000km of tracks were initially vested in a listed company, Railtrack, which collapsed in 2001. The infrastructure has since been back in public hands under the guise of Network Rail. 

Fragmentation, meanwhile, has encouraged each part of the system to prioritise its own profits rather than collaborating to improve the system. “It’s an adversarial relationship with Network Rail,” says one director of a rail franchise. “We call them blame departments. People who sit around at Network Rail and the train companies deciding whose fault it is.” 

Indeed, the subsidies in effect insulate the operators from those extra expenses the network incurs. While it cost £4.1bn to provide maintenance and renewals work on the system in 2016-17, the train operators paid £1.5bn to access the nation’s tracks. This is half of what they paid at privatisation, even though those tracks are now far more heavily used. 

Of the parts of the sector that remain in private hands, it is the train operators that are now the subject of fiercest contention. Although the data on quality are mixed, with the UK performing better than some European countries in terms of punctuality and reliability, there is a perception that service is poor despite all the public subsidies. 

Journeys are often uncomfortable: 23 per cent of customers commuting into London at peak hours have to stand. According to the consumer group Which?, delays of at least 30 minutes afflicted more than 7m journeys last year. 

Critics argue that train operators are able to make returns, and pay themselves dividends, despite contributing very little in the way of risk capital. While operating margins of 3 per cent are not high, the train companies paid nearly all the £868m operating profits between 2012-13 and 2015/16 as dividends — £634m in the four year period. 

The train operators have few tangible assets and almost no exposure to business risk. Indeed, their franchise agreements frequently offer revenue protection should there be an economic decline or changes in London employment levels — the two biggest drivers of passenger numbers. 

What the private owners mainly deliver is marketing nous; promoting services and experimenting with timetables and branding. While more than a third of ticket prices are set by the government, they have freedom to set the remainder at levels they believe the market will bear. 

So deep is the dissatisfaction that one group of long-suffering customers who will pay up to £4,696 this year for a season ticket on the poorly performing Southern service between London and Brighton, just an hour away, created a musical dubbed “Southern Fail”. Following a series of strikes, the satirical website The Daily Mash said Southern had decided to “replace the timetable with an avant-garde poem”. 

As with other privatised monopolies, competition was supposed to ensure lower prices and sharper services. But in recent years this has faded, raising questions over the legitimacy of the franchising system. A third of train operating companies now hold their franchises by so-called “direct awards” from government, rather than auction. 

Successive governments, out of an apparent desire to keep the private sector onside, have been reluctant to wield their powers against poorly performing franchises. Only one train operator has ever been stripped of its contract — Connex for poor performance in south-east England in 2001 and 2003. Three more have walked away after overbidding for contracts, with minimum penalties. 

Last month, the government allowed Virgin Rail and Stagecoach to terminate their East Coast line franchise three years early, saving them the need to write a £2bn cheque to the government under previously agreed revenue growth forecasts. Yet with only a handful of operators bidding for franchises, the duo may end up operating the line again — on more profitable terms. 

Lord Adonis, a Labour peer who recently resigned from the National Infrastructure Commission, called the “bailout” a “scandal” that “threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the whole franchising system”. He argues that the government should keep a state-owned operating company in reserve, to demonstrate to franchisees that it can reassume their obligations if they fail. 

When National Express handed back the keys to the East Coast line franchise in 2009, it was renationalised under an arm’s-length government body called Directly Operated Railways. Nevertheless, during the following five years under state control, it increased ticket sales, returned about £1bn to the taxpayer and delivered record levels of customer satisfaction. 

The rolling stock — which is leased to the train operators for about £1.5bn a year — is still largely owned by three companies: Angel Trains, Porterbrook and Eversholt. Each is in the hands of financial investors, each with convoluted multi-tiered, overseas ownership structures, sometimes making tracing the flow of money difficult. Eversholt is owned by a Hong Kong company with a Cayman Islands subsidiary; Angel mostly by Luxembourg-based investors; and Porterbrook by another consortium of international investors. 

The Competition Commission concluded in 2009 that the rolling stock companies could have cost the taxpayer as much as £100m a year by overcharging operators on leasing rates. More recently, the government has attempted to procure some new trains directly using complex private finance initiative deals — which cuts the rolling stock companies out of the process — although that too has been criticised as poor value for money by public spending watchdogs. 

The government’s micromanagement of procurement has also slowed the pace of ordering, meaning the average age of rolling stock has almost doubled since 2008 to 21 years — roughly the same age as pre-privatisation. 

There is a growing consensus among both executives and industry experts as well as the public that Britain’s unique attempt to create competition on Britain’s rail network has not delivered. 

While it has led to more services, and encouraged more users to pay higher prices, it has not unleashed the productivity improvement necessary both to upgrade the network and stabilise the network’s finances. 

Over the same period, for instance, London’s state-owned metro network, Transport for London, has grown just as quickly and delivered much more state-of-the-art investment.  

This has brought forward calls for more chopping and changing. To deal with the problems of co-ordination and planning, Chris Grayling, the transport secretary and an advocate of private sector involvement, is pressing for formal joint ventures between private franchises and Network Rail on some routes, so that eventually operators can take more responsibility for the tracks. 

Another option — advocated by some franchise holders — is to ape the way Transport for London commissions services from the private sector, taking the revenues and responsibility for service delivery, while contracting out bus and train provision on tightly specified terms. 

Some argue there is a simple solution: reunite track and train in the only feasible manner, a return to public ownership. 

Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition Labour leader, has proposed putting the franchises back under state control as they expire and commissioning trains directly from manufacturers. An October poll by the conservative think-tank Legatum found nearly three-quarters of the UK population agreed with him. 

Labour’s critics, however, say that its plans would do little to solve the well-known failings of Network Rail. “The thing that makes me laugh is how people have forgotten how they used to hate BR,” says Lord Freud. “It was a national laughing stock.” 

As for Lord Adonis, he argues that further revolutionary change is pointless and “no simple ownership change can fix the railways”. 

But back in Carlisle, Mr Johnstone, who now works for the Northern franchise currently run by Deutsche Bahn-owned Arriva, supports a return to state control. “If you scrape the paint off, eventually you get to British Rail. But before you get to British Rail you get to the last time Arriva had the franchise about three coats in,” he adds. “If you keep painting them they won’t make it through the tunnels — there’s that many layers of paint on them.”

IF A WOMAN HAS THESE 14 QUALITIES NEVER LET HER GO, Do you agree?

VALENTINA RESETARITS, GISELA WOLF in The Independent

People in long term relationships will someday get to the point where they need to ask themselves: Is this really the person I want to spend the rest of my life with? Is the woman by my side really the one?

Scientists all over the world are researching the extremely complicated issues surrounding love and relationships and they have spent thousands of hours trying to figure out how people fit together and what qualities they need to bring into a relationship to make it a happy and lasting one.

We have compiled the most important and interesting results of these studies. If the woman by your side has these 14 qualities and behaviours, you know you have found the one.

1. She is smarter than you

When you are looking for a partner for life, make sure that she is smart. Ideally, she should be smarter than you. And science agrees. Lawrence Whalley, professor emeritus of the University of Aberdeen has been researching dementia for a long time and he found that a smart woman can protect you from dementia later in life. His advice: “The thing a boy is never told he needs to do if he wants to live a longer life — but what he should do — is marry an intelligent woman. There is no better buffer than intelligence.”

The idea is that a smart partner never stops challenging you intellectually, which helps you keep your mental faculties keen forever.

2. She is honest

Everyone makes mistakes and bad decisions sometimes. This makes it even more important to have someone who can get you back on track and tell you when you are wrong. Studies show that men want to have an honest partner by their side when they look for a long term committed relationship. If you have found a woman like that, never let her go again.

3. She has a positive outlook

​Is your girlfriend the type of person who always sees the glass as half full? Could you sometimes even accuse her of naïve optimism? Then you might have found the woman of your dreams. Because look at it this way: Negative people are toxic and bad for our health in the long run.

This is because we tend to take on the negativity of people we spend the most time with. This was shown in a research paper by the psychologist Elaine Hatfield. And this internalized negativity can lead to increased heart rate, it impedes our digestion and lowers our concentration.

4. She compromises

Life can’t always be a bed of roses and at some point in your relationship, you and your partner will disagree. It’s completely normal and even inevitable. But the relationship can only work if both partners are willing to compromise.

Psychologists of the UCLA have accompanied 172 married couples for 11 years and came to a simple conclusion: “It’s easy to be committed to your relationship when it’s going well,” said senior study author Thomas Bradbury. “As a relationship changes, however, shouldn’t you say at some point something like, ‘I’m committed to this relationship, but it’s not going very well — I need to have some resolve, make some sacrifices and take the steps I need to take to keep this relationship moving forward.”

The scientists say that those willing to take the steps and make the sacrifices will have a long and happy marriage.

5. She laughs at your jokes

Of course we always want someone by our side who actually laughs at our jokes. In 2006 a study by psychologists of Westfield State University suggested that having a partner who thinks they are funny is more important for men than for women. If you have already found a woman you can laugh with, make sure to take good care of her.

6. She has an open heart

Having a partner who shines in the public spotlight and can easily make herself heard in a group makes life a lot easier.

A study by the University of Westminster suggests that people who are open hearted and share personal information are seen as especially attractive. The authors of the study even say that this quality is so important that people will judge the physical appearance of open hearted people as more handsome or beautiful.

7. She supports your goals and pursues her own

For a long time scientists tried to prove that men prefer to marry weak women. In her book “Why smart men marry smart women”, Christine C. Whelan thoroughly debunks this myth and proves with statistics that successful, well educated and high earning women do not marry less often than others.

And remember the advantages: A strong woman by your side will motivate you and won’t be dependent on you. You don’t need to worry about her and she won’t need your constant validation.

A weak person often tends to forget his or her own goals. These people don’t just prioritise the goals of their partners, they tend to co-opt them completely. This has been shown by a study of the University of British Columbia. You need a healthy combination of personal goals and goals you pursue together.

8. She has a good relationship with her parents

​If you want to know what your partner will be like in 30 years, look at their parents. If you want to know how they will treat you in 30 years, look at how they treat their parents now.

Researchers of the University of Alberta questioned 2970 people of all ages and saw a clear correlation between the relationship to the parents in their teen years and their love life later on.

But this doesn’t mean that her relationship with her parents always needs to be perfect. “Understanding your contribution to the relationship with your parents would be important to recognising any tendency to replicate behaviour - positive or negative - in an intimate relationship,” author Matt Johnson writes. The only way to learn how to do better in other relationships is to be aware of those behaviour.

9. She is kind

Science says that the keys to a long and happy relationship are kindness and generosity. Psychologist John Gottmann of the University of Washington started his research on married couples over four decades ago.

He identified two kinds of couples: Masters and Disasters. The disasters, you guessed it, break it off in the first six years of the relationship. But the masters stay together for a long time and always have this one thing in common: “They are scanning social environment for things they can appreciate and say thank you for. They are building this culture of respect and appreciation very purposefully,” he said in an interview with The Atlantic.

10. She remains calm in fights and calms you down too

Fights are an inevitability of all relationships. Never disagreeing is not a sign of a stable relationship. But the important thing is how you deal with disagreements and how you make up again after.

Researchers of the University of California Berkeley and Northwest University have accompanied 80 couples for 13 years and they found out that a relationship will last the longest if the woman can calm herself during a fight and transfer those emotions to the man. The effect is not the same if the man is the one to calm down first.

11. She does foolish things with you

Have you found a woman who does not hold it against you if you stayed out too long partying? In most cases because she was at the party with you? Then never let her go again.

A long term study of the University of Michigan with 4864 married individuals showed that the happiest couples where those who drank alcohol together. Of course this doesn’t mean that alcoholics are happier partners. “It could be that couples that do more leisure time activities together have better marital quality,” says Kira Birditt, author of the study.

12. She has a life of her own

Having your own space and privacy is even more important for your relationship than a good sex life. This has been shown by a long term study of the University of Michigan. “When individuals have their own friends, their own set of interests, when they are able to define themselves not by their spouse or relationship, that makes them happier and less bored,” Terry Orbuch, author of the study, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

13. She accepts your flaws

Too many relationships only seem to consist of one partner criticizing the other. Their ugly pants, their bad jokes, their annoying habit of chewing too loudly, you get the picture.

If you have found a woman who can just accept you, you should consider yourself lucky. “An optimistic approach will rub off on you and attract you to others who are seeing the world as half full,” psychologist Terry Orbuch said in her column for The Huffington Post.

14. She does not bear grudges

If you found a woman who can forgive others, you will have her by your side for a long time. A study by researchers of the Luther College, the Duke University, and the Harvard Divinity School showed that people who can unconditionally forgive others live longer lives.

But perhaps more importantly: Forgiveness is the foundation of a healthy relationship. People are not perfect and neither are you. There will be times when you inadvertently do something that hurts your partner. And then you will need her to be able to forgive you.

If you have found a woman who has some or all of these qualities, treat her well and never let her go. Your life will be better for having her.

"IF A MAN HAS THESE 9 QUALITIES NEVER LET HIM GO" Do you agree?

Rachel Hosie in The Independent

There are certain traits that the majority of heterosexual women look for in a man: kindness, GSOH, an understanding that the fight for gender equality is very much still ongoing.

But other aspects of your personality could be a deal-breaker for one woman and simultaneously the reason another falls in love with you.

Beauty of all kinds really is in the eye of the beholder, and human uniqueness is what makes the search for ‘the one’ all the more interesting (and difficult).

That said, with scientists having spent decades trying to work out the key to why we fall in love, there are certain things you should look for in a potential suitor which suggest you may have found a keeper.

With the advent of dating apps meaning another love interest is never more than a right swipe away, it can be hard to commit.

So if you're wondering whether to settle down with your current partner, it might be worth taking a step back and asking yourself whether he ticks the boxes below.

If he doesn’t, that doesn’t mean he isn’t the one for you. But if he does, you’ve likely got a pretty good egg on your hands.


1. He’s smart

While some of us are naturally brainier than others, a new study from the Hanken School of Economics in Finland suggests that the smarter the man, the less likely he is to be unfaithful. According to the research, more intelligent men are more likely to get married and stay married.

So if you’re worried your boyfriend might be too brainy for you, a) don’t be intimidated because intelligence isn’t everything, and b) know that you may have a guy who’s more likely to be faithful on your hands. 

2. He makes you laugh

Finding someone you can have a laugh with is crucial - even if everyone else rolls their eyes at his dad jokes, if they crack you up, that’s all that matters.

And a study has shown that men are more likely to have “mating success” if they have a GSOH. 

3. He actively supports your career

A study found that husbands were a deciding factor in two-thirds of women’s decisions to quit their jobs, often because they thought it was their duty to bring up their children.

Even when the women in the study described their husbands as supportive, they also revealed that the men refused to change their own work schedules or offer to help more with looking after children. 

4. He makes as much effort with your friends and family as you do with his

It’s not uncommon for a woman to end up giving up her own social life to slot into her new man’s. But it’s rare that a man does the same once entering a relationship.

In fact, a recent study found that young men get more satisfaction out of their bromances than their romantic relationships with women. While this is clearly ludicrous, maintaining your friendships is important. So make sure you’re with a man who not only wants you to make time to see your friends but also makes an effort to get to know them too.

5. He’s emotionally intelligent

If stereotypes are to be believed, it is women who are always desperate to talk about feelings and never men who fall hard. Whilst this definitely isn’t true, it’s important each person in a relationship has a certain level of emotional intelligence.

Studies suggest that women are better at taking the opinions and views of their partner into consideration than men, which is essential for a healthy relationship.

6. He respects your opinions and listens to what you have to say

Being closed-minded isn’t a trait that’s exclusive to a particular gender, but if a man is convinced he’s always right and will never consider your argument, it’s not a good sign.

If a man rejects his female partner’s influence, it may be a sign that he has power issues, according to Dr John Gottman, author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

7. He’s willing to put the work in

A study from the University of Texas found that the most successful relationships weren’t down to compatibility, but rather making the relationship work. “My research shows that there is no difference in the objective compatibility between those couples who are unhappy and those who are happy,” study author Dr. Ted Hudson said.

So if you or your partner is always looking for the next best thing rather than committing to make your relationship last, it may not bode well. 

8. He celebrates your achievements

Whether it’s deadlifting your bodyweight or learning enough German for a trip to Oktoberfest, it’s important to have a partner who celebrates your achievements.

But this isn’t just to make you feel great - a study published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that couples who did so were more satisfied with their relationships than those who reacted negatively or were indifferent.

9. He shares your values

Having a similar outlook in life could be crucial to a successful relationship, according to a study. The more alike your personalities are, the more likely you are to approach problems in the same way.

You and your partner will share similar approaches to everything from socialising to working if your priorities are the same, and this is likely to lead to a greater level of respect for one another.

Of course, if your partner doesn’t have all the above qualities that doesn’t mean you should necessarily dump him immediately - we all look for different things in a partner and a relationship, after all.

But if he does tick all these boxes, he could be one to hold on to.