Meet Mrs Average
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Your support makes all the difference.The average woman is now marrying for the first time at 28.2 years of age, significantly older than in 1961, when the typical woman was taking the vow at 23.1 years of age. For all marriages (including remarriages) the average age is 29.8 years. The average duration of marriage at divorce is 10.5 years.
MARRIAGE
The average woman is now marrying for the first time at 28.2 years of age, significantly older than in 1961, when the typical woman was taking the vow at 23.1 years of age. For all marriages (including remarriages) the average age is 29.8 years. The average duration of marriage at divorce is 10.5 years.
BIRTH AND DEATH
The average women will have a child at 29.1 years (compared to 26.7 in 1980). Within marriage, the average age at which a woman has her first child is 30.8 years.
The latest provisional figures from the National Statistics office show that the number of children a woman is likely to have is 1.64, which is at its lowest ever, down from 1.66 in 2000. The standard 2.4 kids and a dog scenario, which goes back to the 1970s, is outdated. The current birth rate is well below the average family size of 2.1 children per woman that is needed for the population to replace itself without inward migration.
Apparently, the average pregnant women in Britain craves curry. The average woman will live until she is 80.2, compared to 77 in 1981.
MONEY
The average working woman in full-time employment earns £366.80 per week. That's £19,074 per year. Among women (including part-time workers and the unemployed), those who were cohabiting had the highest net income per week, whereas those who were married had the lowest.
The average woman spends £90.60 a week on leisure, of which £11 goes on alcohol and cigarettes. Women are slightly less generous than men at Christmas, spending a total of £533 on average.
TELEVISION
Her favourite television programme is EastEnders, followed by Coronation Street, A Touch of Frost, Heartbeat and Emmerdale. The average weekly TV viewing is 23 hours.
SMOKING AND ALCOHOL
Female smokers get through 89 cigarettes per week on average. In 2000, women drank an average of 7.1 units of alcohol (the equivalent of three and a half pints of beer) per week, half a unit more than in 1998. The increase was particularly marked among young women: the average consumption of women aged 16 to 24 rose from 11 units in 1998 to 12.6 units in 2000.
SEX AND LOVE
People with partners spend an average of £370 a year getting back into their other halves' good books. The average woman buys a reconciliation gift three times a year, a Barclaycard poll found.
Britons are expected to spend almost £800m in total on Valentine's Day, according to research by Capital One Bank, which estimates that the average woman will splash out £19, compared with £41 each for men.
The average woman listening in on men chatting would find their talk unspeakably dull, says the psychologist Oliver James. Female conversations show interest in improving relationships or curiosity as to what others get up to.
British women have an average of 8.6 different sexual partners. The average age for first-time sex is 16.8 years, and the average woman think about sex five times a day.
TRAVEL
The average woman travels 6,156 miles per year and makes 1,065 journeys. She takes on average of 21 minutes to get ready to go anywhere.
TIME USE
The average time per day a woman spends watching TV and listening to radio is two hours 37 minutes. Gardening and DIY takes up 28 minutes, cooking and housework two hours 18 minutes, and shopping 40 minutes. Women do most domestic chores. Mrs Average's favourite exercises are yoga and going to the gym. She speaks 7,000 words a day, and swallows 4lbs of lipstick in her life, which could lead to a build-up of toxins.
LOOKS
The average woman spends £189 a year on toiletries, hair products and creams, according to Boots. She spends up to £500 a year on clothes that she never wears. She has tried to diet at least six times, with one woman in 10 saying she is constantly on a diet.
An astonishing 90 per cent of women say their body causes them to feel unhappy, according to findings from "The Female Body Survey of Great Britain 2001" by Top Santé Health & Beauty magazine.
BODY
She produces 50,000 pints of saliva in a lifetime, enough to fill two standard-size swimming pools. She averages about 1,460 dreams a year – more than four each night. She will drink 16,000 gallons of water in a lifetime.
British women are growing more curvy, with the 32B-20-32 average figure of the 1950s being replaced by a fuller 36C-28-38. Her average weight is now 9st 6lbs, compared with 8st 6lbs in the 1950s.
Every 10 years since 1920 women have added, on average, half an inch to their busts, an inch to their waists and three-quarters of an inch to their hips.
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