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WOMEN

German men ‘lust after female earners’

Financially independent, smart women trump beauty when German men look for partners, a study released on Wednesday suggested. This has meant the country's young adults delay starting a family – and not always out of choice.

German men 'lust after female earners'
Photo: DPA

The Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) asked 2,000 men and women in 2007 on their life plans. Last year, 211 of these men and 290 of the women were re-visited to see what had changed.

The most recent study, published in Brigitte magazine, found that more than two thirds of men expected their partner to be financially independent. In 2007, only half found this important.

“Blonde, cute and quiet no longer cuts it,” said Brigitte Huber, editor-in-chief of the magazine. “A man wants a woman who he can show off in public. A clever woman is the new status symbol for a man.”

Seventy-six percent of men said having a partner without a job was out of the question, while 45 percent said they wanted a woman who earned a serious amount of money.

Yet men not only said they wanted a career woman, but also a partner that wanted to have children. Just a third of men said they would be willing to take a career break to help with a newborn, so this meant shifting responsibility to the mother.

Jutta Allmendinger, who led the study, said: “Smart is the new sexy.” She added that women were increasingly delaying having a family and putting a career first. “Children are an add-on” she told newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Results from the study five years ago showed that 92 percent of women said they wanted children. Five years later, only 42 percent of these women have actually had children, with many saying they were too worried that it would negatively affect their career.

These concerns are reflected in Germany’s birth rate which is one of the lowest in Europe.

Over 80 percent of women said that they thought they would regret not having children in the future. But half said they could imagine having none at all.

READ MORE: Firm sacked woman as she ‘might get pregnant’

The Local/jcw

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FOOTBALL

Putellas becomes second Spanish footballer in history to win Ballon d’Or

Alexia Putellas of Barcelona and Spain won the women's Ballon d'Or prize on Monday, becoming only the second Spanish-born footballer in history to be considered the best in the world, and claiming a win for Spain after a 61-year wait.

FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award.
FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award. Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Putellas is the third winner of the prize, following in the footsteps of Ada Hegerberg, who won the inaugural women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018, and United States World Cup star Megan Rapinoe, winner in 2019.

Putellas captained Barcelona to victory in this year’s Champions League, scoring a penalty in the final as her side hammered Chelsea 4-0 in Gothenburg.

She also won a Spanish league and cup double with Barca, the club she joined as a teenager in 2012, and helped her country qualify for the upcoming Women’s Euro in England.

Her Barcelona and Spain teammate Jennifer Hermoso finished second in the voting, with Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia coming in third.

It completes an awards double for Putellas, who in August was named player of the year by European football’s governing body UEFA.

But it’s also a huge win for Spain as it’s the first time in 61 years that a Spanish footballer – male or female – is crowned the world’s best footballer of the year, and only the second time in history a Spaniard wins the Ballon d’Or. 

Former Spanish midfielder Luis Suárez (not the ex Liverpool and Barça player now at Atlético) was the only Spanish-born footballer to win the award in 1960 while at Inter Milan. Argentinian-born Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid star who took up Spanish citizenship, also won it in 1959.

Who is Alexia Putellas?

Alexia Putellas grew up dreaming of playing for Barcelona and after clinching the treble of league, cup and Champions League last season, her status as a women’s footballing icon was underlined as she claimed the Ballon d’Or on Monday.

Unlike the men’s side, Barca’s women swept the board last term with the 27-year-old, who wears “Alexia” on the back of her shirt, at the forefront, months before Lionel Messi’s emotional departure.

Attacker Putellas, who turns 28 in February, spent her childhood less than an hour’s car journey from the Camp Nou and she made her first trip to the ground from her hometown of Mollet del Valles, for the Barcelona derby on January 6, 2000.

Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas (R) vies with VfL Wolfsburg's German defender Kathrin Hendrich
Putellas plays as a striker for Barça and Spain. GABRIEL BOUYS / POOL / AFP

Exactly 21 years later she became the first woman in the modern era to score in the stadium, against Espanyol. Her name was engraved in the club’s history from that day forward, but her story started much earlier.

She started playing the sport in school, against boys.

“My mum had enough of me coming home with bruises on my legs, so she signed me up at a club so that I stopped playing during break-time,” Putellas said last year.

So, with her parent’s insistence, she joined Sabadell before being signed by Barca’s academy.

“That’s where things got serious… But you couldn’t envisage, with all one’s power, to make a living from football,” she said.

After less than a year with “her” outfit, she moved across town to Espanyol and made her first-team debut in 2010 before losing to Barca in the final of the Copa de la Reina.

She then headed south for a season at Valencia-based club Levante before returning “home” in July 2012, signing for Barcelona just two months after her father’s death.

In her first term there she helped Barca win the league and cup double, winning the award for player of the match in the final of the latter competition.

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