What’s the Average Hand Size for Men, Women, and Children?
The average adult human being has approximately 5 fingers on each hand. These digits are made up of three bones: the first bone (the phalange), which is located at the base of your middle finger; the second bone (the metacarpus) which is located at the top of your thumb; and finally, a third bone called the humerus or upper arm bone.
In general, men have longer fingers than women and children. However, there are exceptions. For example, some people with dwarfism have shorter fingers due to their small body size.
Average Length of Fingers for Adults:
Age Gender Finger Length 1 Male 4.5 2 Female 3.8 3 Child 0.6
How Long Are Your Fingers?
Finger length varies from person to person depending on many factors such as age, gender, weight, height and other physical characteristics. Some people may have very long fingers while others may only reach up to their knuckles!
The human hand is an incredibly complex structure that allows us to do millions of different and helpful things in every day life. The length of your fingers can say a lot about you and your health in general.
The following chart shows the average finger lengths for both men and women, broken down by each finger.
Number of Fingers (Male) Number of Fingers (Female) Length (Inches) Number of Fingers (Male) Number of Fingers (Female) Length (Inches) Thumb Long Short Thumb Long Short Index 2.1 1.9 0.08 2.9 2.1 N/A Middle 2.2 2 0.1 2.6 2.1 N/A Ring 2.2 1.9 0.09 2.4 2.1 N/A Pinky 2 1.8 0.1 1.9 1.9 N/A
*N/A = Measurement was not taken because it is not visible or accessible in any way
The results show that men generally have longer fingers than women for all five fingers. The length of a person’s fingers can show how hard or long they worked on a regular basis since your body tends to adapt to what you’re regularly doing.
Children tend to have much shorter fingers than both men and women, with their middle fingers averaging at two inches in length (1.9 to be exact).
The above results are for a wide range of ages, so use them as a general guideline. If you need a more accurate measurement of your finger length, ask your doctor or another medical professional.
What Can Finger Length Tell Us?
Finger length can tell a lot about a person’s lifestyle and health. For example, if you notice that your finger—especially your ring finger—is much longer than your index finger, this usually means that you used a specific hand (usually the right one) for writing and drawing for many years when you were young. In other words, you may have a job in which you use your writing hand a lot.
Other factors aside from writing can affect finger length as well, such as playing the guitar or sports. If you engage in any of these activities regularly, your fingers will reflect that by staying longer.
If your ring finger is much longer than your index finger, there’s a chance that you’re more attractive to the opposite (or same) gender.
Recent studies show that homosexual women tend to have longer ring fingers than their index fingers while homosexual men tend to have roughly the same length.
Women whose ring finger is longer than their index finger tend to be more fertile and are more likely to get pregnant during sexual activity. This may also change depending on if you’re breastfeeding. The breastfeeding hormones estrogen and prolactin can make your index finger temporarily longer after you give birth and while you’re feeding your child.
Men’s finger lengths do not change due to breastfeeding.
The ratio between your ring finger and your index finger seems to be fixed shortly after birth and remains the same throughout your entire life. While there are exceptions, a rough guideline is that if the length of your ring finger is longer than your index finger, you’re probably more likely to be creative while if they’re roughly the same length or your index finger is longer, you tend to rely on logic and rationality when problem-solving.
Sources & references used in this article:
Body image: Understanding body dissatisfaction in men, women and children by S Grogan – 2016 – books.google.com
Understanding the” family gap” in pay for women with children by JS Wallerstein, S Blakeslee – 2004 – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Informal transfers, men, women and children: Family economy and informal social security in early 20th century Finnish households by J Waldfogel – Journal of economic Perspectives, 1998 – aeaweb.org
