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Comment by CapitalistCartr | Hacker News Reader

There are some considerable weaknesses in concluding causation here. Their theory is a sound proposal, but countries with higher levels of health, also are wealthier, more socialist, and other factors. All of which might be relevant.

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One possible confounding variable that immediately lept to my mind was a study published sometime in the past couple years indicated that women's preferences change depending on whether they are currently taking hormonal birth control. I believe it did say that more "feminine" characteristics were more attractive when taking such birth control - and these birth control methods are probably more common in countries with better medical systems in general.

Yes, I remember reading about this as well... Perhaps it does play a role whose 'share' hasn't been taken into account.

They quote Romania as one of the low-masculinity countries while Bulgaria as one of the high, so as somewhat polar opposites. There are very small differences in terms of wealth, health care access, or even physical location between these two countries.

There are very small differences in terms of wealth, health care access, or even physical location between these two countries.

Or cultural traditions like

Mărţişor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%83r%C5%A3i%C5%9For

and

Martenitsa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martenitsa

Or ancient history, or recent history, or genetics, etc.

This really makes me wonder about the study, and exactly what they measured?

Totally agree. There are too many other confounding factors to make any strong conclusions from this.

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