The Female Perspective on Parenting and Children (A 1998 SDU Survey) Enquiring minds want to know. What is the married Singaporean woman's outlook on family and children today? SDU, with the help of Forbes Research Pte Ltd, set out to find out. We interviewed 545 women about their views on parenting, the factors motivating or preventing them from having children or larger-sized families. We found that a high percentage of married graduates (31.3%) met their spouses at university. Here's some other findings that SDU members will find interesting.... What's it like after marriage? More than 90% of all respondents are happier with the changes in their life since marriage (for those without children), or after having children (for those with children). High on their list of reasons are 'companionship', 'happiness', and 'life having more meaning'. Before having children, what are the 3 most important issues for female graduates? Response % Establishing Career 44% Financial stabilityr 61.5% Owning a HDB flat 26.7% This finding confirms an earlier survey on singles (Gerald: I'm not biased, I just couldn't find it ):, where Signaporeans view having their own nest, and being financially secure as prerequisites for marriage and starting a family. In fact, some of the main reasons given by some respondents on why they were still childless was "establish career"(23.1%), "mentally not prepared"(19.8%), and "waiting for a HDB flat"(16.5%). Why are couples marrying late?Some reasons can be found in the survey when some 55.4% of the respondents felt they must have a joint income of $5001 and above before they can consider having children. (Non-graduates indicated $2000-3000). A higher percentage that indicated this income bracket came from graduate females without children than from those with children. This could be based on their need to continue with the same lifestyle and the perception that children are costly to have.In fact, more than half (52%) of respondents said they would not sacrifice their present standard of living to have more children. Are children important?A resounding 70% indicated "very important" or "important". They cited reasons such as "children bring life to family" and "it is part of the stages of life". When is the ideal time to have a first child? A majority preferred waiting 1 to 2 years after marriage before having the first child. Age 27 to 29 years was considered by the majority (53.3%) as the ideal age for the first child. In fact, the majority with children, had their first child at this age. Generally, the majority (50.5%) had or wanted to have two children. Will it be easy to raise children? When it comes to motherhood, reality strikes. With 38.3% expressing the task of raising children as "difficult" or "very difficult", the main reason given was the lack of time to look after children (69.5%). What can the Government do to encourage married couples to have more children? Response % Better flexi-hours 19.9% More or better childcare 18.1% More tax relief 15.5% On Government policies or benefits which encourage married couples to have more children, the participants were most familiar with "tax relief"(72.6%), "child subsidy"(36.9%), and "foreign maid subsidy"(32.8%). Summary This years survery gathered pertinent information confirming that graduates were happier with the changes in their lives after marriage and after having children. They were also acutely aware of the financial obligations to provide a good home and environment. Children remain important in a marriage and many lament the lack of time to look after children. With a large number of singles meeting their spouses on campus, more can be done to have the universities promote cross-faculty interactions and hostel living for undergraduates. Forbes conducted face-to-face interviews with 274 graduate females and 271 non-graduate females who were in the age group 21 to 40 years of age. For graduate females, we selected only those married to graduate males (138 with children and 136 without children). For non-graduate females, we selected only those married to non-graduates (199 with children and 72 without children).