About 70 percent of Chinese women say Mr Right must have an apartment before they talk about marriage, according to a nationwide survey released yesterday.

Women are also particular about their future husband's job, with 40 percent saying a public servant would be their first choice, ahead of company executives, police/soldiers, business owners and those in the medical profession.

Just over half the men surveyed, however, said they didn't mind what job their future wife did. Some 38 percent of men said they would prefer a teacher, followed by a public servant, medical worker, and those involved in accountancy and finance, but they regarded appearance as most important.

The "2010 China Marital Status Report" interviewed a total of 32,676 people between the ages of 20 and 26 across China's mainland.

Besides an apartment, 70 percent of women said a stable income and savings were a must-have for a man.

Of those women, 65 percent said a prospective husband should earn at least double their salary.

However, 63 percent of men didn't have any requirements in regard to their future wife's income.

Among other important criteria in choosing future husbands, their involvement and care for the marriage was highly placed. Having similar interests was not considered important, but that was a view not shared by the men.

Only 0.7 percent of women villagers surveyed said they would marry a farmer while just 3.3 percent of men would prefer a village woman.

Commenting on the findings, sociologist Li Yinhe said that some women who suffered from an "inferiority complex" took it for granted that men should buy a home before marriage. Li said these women were out of place in a modern world which encourages women to be independent.

The fact that most men don't take a woman's job into consideration when contemplating marriage shows that they want their wife to have more time to take care of family chores, said Tian Fanjiang, an official with the matchmaking division of the China Social Work Association.

More than 90 percent of the men interviewed thought women should get married before the age of 27 and 32 percent of them said the prime time for a woman to marry was when she was 20 to 24.

Women, on the other hand, prefer men to be older. More than 50 percent said men should marry between 28 and 30, when they could be seen to have a stable career and be economically well-off.

Young people born in the 1980s tend to listen more to their parents when considering a spouse, compared with other age groups, the survey found.

That's because these youngsters are not economically independent enough, said Jiang Yongping, of the Women's Studies Institute of China.

Wang Zhiguo, of matchmaking website Baihe.com, said single people should free themselves from strict criteria because most of the time "what they hope for is not usually the real situation."

The report was released by the matchmaking website, the China Association of Marriage and Family, and the Committee of Matchmaking Service Industries under the China Social Work Association.