Will People Have A Stronger Intention to Marry if They Could Work Shorter Hours? A National Survey Experiment in Singapore

Recent research suggests that long working hours and its associated 'kiasu' (afraid to lose) culture may be a crucial reason for delayed and low marriage rate in Singapore, calling for reduced working hours and a more family-friendly working environment. However, the impact of working hours on marriage is not yet theorized and empirically tested due to the endogenous relationship between marriage and working time. This proposed research aims to theorize long working hours as an institutional constraint and examine whether removal of the constraint (via shorter working hours policy enacted by the government) can improve young people's marriage intentions. Using an online survey experiment, this research has three objectives. (1) This study aims to explore how the marriage intentions of Singaporean people may change under different degrees of institutional constraints by experimentally manipulating hypothetical scenarios of working hour arrangements (vignettes). (2) This study also aims to explore how the relationship between working hour arrangement and marital intentions vary across people from different gender, ethnic and educational groups, who tend to have different attitudes towards marriage. (3) This study aims to test mechanisms through which shorter working hours policy affects marriage intentions using mediation analyses. Overall, this study provides a new perspective to understand low marriage rates in Singapore and holds significant implications for population and work policies.