Flirting to get ahead has always been a contentious issue. But it seems women are not scared to use their feminine charms to get what they want both at home and in the office, according to a new study.

More than half of the women questioned in a survey said they had flirted to get their own way in day-to-day life.

While among women in the office, around 20 per cent admitted they were flirtatious at work to receive preferential treatment.

Women in relationships are also likely to employ feminine charm to get their way. Almost one in three said they used sex as a reward for their partner, the survey by online comparison site confused.com said.

Earlier this year researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the London School of Economics found flirting was a powerful negotiating tool.

After setting up a series of experiments, they discovered flirtatious women were able to get around 20 per cent more off the price of a car.

The researchers said flirting conveyed “assertiveness” and “power”, while women who were simply friendly were seen as pushovers.

The survey found that women bosses were less likely than men to employ a candidate based on how attractive they found them. 26 per cent of women said attraction would form the basis of their decision, compared to 39 per cent of men.

Almost three in five employers, 57 per cent, said they gave preferential treatment to attractive employees.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)