YOU have a degree and a great job, darling? Wow, that's a turn on.

Aussie men are more likely to feel this way these days.

A recent study in Australia by Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research shows that women graduates there have become more sought after as wives than non-graduates.

Using 2006 data, researchers found that 61 per cent of those with a degree (aged 30 to 34 years old) were married, compared with only 53 per cent of non-graduates.

Analysts have said part of the reason could be economics - the pooling of resources to achieve aspirations like buying a house.

But Singapore has had a perennial problem getting more of its graduate women to marry.

And here the economic factors seem to be different, with more people focusing on their careers.

One 2006 survey here, across a variety of age groups, showed that 81 per cent of the 1,800 respondents would like to get married. However, 74 per cent of the singles also said that achieving success in work and studies was their top priority.

And when it comes to graduate women finding mates, Singapore men are often blamed.

Professor Gavin Jones, a researcher from the Asia Research Institute, told The New Paper on Sunday that men here tend 'to want to marry women who are less qualified than them'.

He noted that this is because it hurts the self-confidence of some men if they marry women who are smarter.

'Some men can't deal with wives who are better educated and make more money than them,' he said.

But Prof Jones noted that graduate women had to share part of the blame because many of them would prefer to 'marry up'.

And with their careers coming first, 'by the time they actually want to settle down, there seems to be slim pickings in the marriage market'.

Miss Sheena Jabal, CEO of NuLife Care and Counselling Centre, agrees.

'When they come home, they are so exhausted they have no time to go out on dates,' she said.

Associate Professor Ngiam Tee Liang, from the Department of Social Work at the National University of Singapore, raised the possibility that graduate women here are more status-conscious than their peers down under. Hence they were more likely to 'marry up'.

OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE

He said: 'Perhaps in Australia, occupational prestige is different from that in Singapore.

'We don't get the sense that they look at educational qualifications as much, which makes it easier to marry across different qualifications.'

Mr Charles Lee, senior counsellor at Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society, feels non-graduate women are more likely to marry than their better educated counterparts because they are more dependent on men for their livelihoods.

Two graduate women The New Paper on Sunday spoke to echoed these views.

Mrs Angie Goh, 30, a consultant and a newly-wed of four months, said: 'I think for graduates who are doing well in life and earning a stable income, they might not see the need for anyone to come in and disrupt their lives.'

Miss Leona Goh, 31, a consultant who is single, also reinforced the point made by Professor Jones.

She said: 'I think Asian men wouldn't want to marry someone more capable than them or who earns more than them.

'So they marry someone of the same rank or lower, to show their masculinity.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on May 4, 2008.