Women in Shanghai prefer a happy family to a successful career, a recent survey has found.

The Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions asked 430 women educated to university level, including holders of bachelor, masters and PhD degrees, about their living situation and attitudes toward jobs, wages and future plans.

Thirty percent of respondents said a happy family was their first ideal, while 24 percent said they wanted greater success at work.

This compares to a previous survey of men which found that only 18 percent of males considered a happy family as their greatest desire, with 36 percent saying their greatest hope was a successful career.

The latest survey indicates 72 percent of well-educated women think their living situation is better than five years ago, and 84 percent are confident about their future career.

"Most women with a strong educational background believe they can have success at work, which makes them very confident about their future living standard," said experts with the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions.

About 46 percent of women like to read books about health, literature and arts in their spare time, aiming to make themselves more beautiful and confident, according to the survey.

More than 85 percent of well-educated women respondents said their wages had increased in the last five years, compared to 75 percent of women without a university education.

The survey revealed female workers with high academic degrees pursued stability in their career.

It found the greatest source of anxiety for well-educated women who were married was the difficulty in choosing between children and a career, while the biggest headache for single women was the difficulty of finding a husband.

The experts said most Chinese men wanted a woman with a lower level of education, and such traditional thinking was making it difficult for well-educated women to find a husband.

(Shanghai Daily, March 7, 2008)