Table 1 Mean levels of marital and parental preferences among Chinese college students, by sex
From: Marriage and parenthood preferences among college students in China
| Â | Females | Males |
|---|---|---|
Want to marry | 3.74 (0.95) | 3.63 (0.99) |
 Strongly agree | 2.1% | 3.3% |
 Agree | 6.9 | 10.7 |
 Unsure | 28.6 | 25.9 |
 Disagree | 39.9 | 39.3 |
 Strongly disagree | 22.5 | 20.7 |
Preferred age at marriage | 26.60 (5.00) | 27.86*** (3.22) |
 20 and younger | 1.1% | 1.1% |
 21 to 25 | 31.5 | 22.2 |
 26 to 30 | 65.9 | 67.4 |
 31 to 35 | 1.7 | 8.6 |
 36 and older | 0.0 | 0.7 |
Preferred number of children | 1.80 (0.85) | 1.84 (0.84) |
 None | 7.4% | 4.1% |
 1 | 19.0 | 25.6 |
 2 | 63.0 | 56.7 |
 3 or more | 10.6 | 13.7 |
Preferred age at first birth | 27.74 (2.51) | 29.59*** (3.24) |
 20 and younger | 1.3% | 0.0% |
 21 to 25 | 13.0 | 8.9 |
 26 to 30 | 77.6 | 66.6 |
 31 to 35 | 7.9 | 21.5 |
 36 and older | 0.3 | 2.9 |
 N | 378 | 270 |