Typically poor reporting from the Daily Mail– I know easy target but this kind of all women are *insert stereotype here* just irritate me (the fact it doesn’t ascribe it all to evolution is a plus – I’m sure people in the comments will have obliged though).

A quick glance at the You Gov summary for this survey (you don’t even have to go and read the actual survey results) shows there’s a whole group missing from the report – men! – and men are not all that different from women.

In a hypothetical situation, 49% of men would like to have married someone who earns more than them, compared to 64% of women – as well as this no women would have preferred someone who earns less thna them, though men weren’t much keener, just 2% there.

So on the whole people would prefer the person they’re with to be better off than them or at least not worse off (and better off doesn’t necessarily mean rich, it’s an individual’s own interpretation of the question).

It doesn’t immediately lead to ‘I want a rich husband to support me’ as much as ‘I want to be with someone who financially contributes to the household’ (particularly as men apparently really aren’t looking for an underemployed woman they can take care of).

On the subject of stay at home parents – 69% of women would like to be at home with their children, if they were in a financial position where that was a choice, but 40% of men would also make that choice.

Which is interesting and possibly suggests a change in how men see their parenting roles, a growing acceptance of the stay at home dad, possibly (hypothetical, up to individual to imagine how this favourable financial situation has come about – and 49% of men are keen to land themselves a “rich wife”) that more men would be willing to care for their children while their partner works – as this doesn’t fit with the women just want a breadwinner narrative everyone seems to be going with, it isn’t reported anywhere.

So what have we learnt today – in completely hypothetical situations, 52% of people would like to be in a relationship with someone who earns more than them, and 55% of parents (with imaginary kids or not) of young children would like to stay home with them, if money was no object – but you know that’s a bit boring, women want to be 50s housewife, way more fun.

While the overall survey is weighted for political party and newspaper preferences, which makes it reasonably ok to generalise for the initial political questions, these later questions were asked of a self-selecting group – men and women who are or have been married – so it’s hard to generalise this to the general population anyway.

Also from the survey, 59% of Labour voters think Cameron is not giving the Liberal Democrats enough influence over policy, 9% think it’s about right, compared to 58% of Lib Dem voters who think the party isn’t getting enough, while 36% think it’s about right.

Meanwhile, 21% of Liberal Democrat voters think the coalition should put up joint candidates at the next election (12% for the Conservatives and 14% for Labour).

Is this the result of a bit of a shake-up of voting intentions, where you have a group of people who are now Labour voters (possibly formerly Lib Dem voters) but are quite keen on what they perceive to be Lib Dem policies so would like to see more of it in the coalition, while those still voting Lib Dem are rather more enthusiastic about the coalition as a whole (think it’s working, want it to continue).