Highly-educated Singaporean women : being single by choice in a patriarchal society and how they make sense of it.

• Main Author: Tan, Mei Feng.
• Other Authors: Tam Chen Hee
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Family, marriage and women
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/43831
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The number of singles in Singapore has been on the rise in recent years. Many papers have been dedicated to “solving” this issue by addressing the problems that singles face, but the aim of my paper is to look at singlehood from another perspective. What if these people have made it a choice to remain single for life? I will be focusing on a specific group of people, namely highly-educated women who have not been married before but embrace the single identity. Through the interviews, I will try to find out the reasons why they choose to be single, and what possible obstacles may be in their way. Governmental policies will be examined as well to see how it has shaped the marriage ideology and gender norms in Singapore, and how these women view the patriarchal society they live in and make sense of their singlehood.