Family ideals across religious groups: a factorial survey experiment in Singapore

Although cultural differences in family ideals across religious groups are widely reported, prior studies focusing on singular family characteristics (e.g. marriage, fertility, and gender roles) through item-based questionnaires have failed to capture the complexity of how individuals weigh these characteristics against each other within comprehensive family profiles. Addressing this gap, this brief report uses a novel approach (i.e. factorial survey experiment) to examine how individuals from various religious backgrounds in Singapore, a multicultural Southeast Asian country, evaluate different family profiles, consisting of multiple randomized attributes. We found more similarities than differences across religions in how people view different aspects of family life as ideal. Specifically, most respondents regardless of religious backgrounds perceive marriage, having children, community respect, above-average household income, close family communication, and saving to support children as more ideal than the same families without these features. In particular, Muslims tend to favour traditional gender roles and a lack of work–family conflicts as more ideal family attributes than those from other religious groups, although the differences attenuate in family profiles with children. Overall, these findings indicate an emerging pattern of uniformity in family ideals across cultural groups, especially in family contexts that involve child-rearing.