An increasing number of single men hope their future spouses will continue to work after having children, according to a government survey released Friday.

The survey, conducted in June 2005, showed 28 percent of single men expect their wives to work, 9 percentage points higher than the previous survey in 2002. The figure has continued to increase from 10.5 percent in 1987.

Meanwhile, 13 percent want their future wives to be stay-at-home mothers, down 5 points from the previous survey. That figure has fallen from 38 percent in 1987.

In this latest survey conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research under the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, 39 percent of the men want their future spouse to quit their jobs when their children are born and resume working when the kids reach a certain age, down 8 points from the previous survey.

The institute surveyed 6,200 single men and women aged between the ages of 18 and 34 in Japan.

The percentage of men who think marriage has benefits is 66 percent, up by 4 percentage points from the previous survey, and the percentage of women who think so is 74 percent, up 5 points.

The number of children that men want rose to 2.07 from 2.05 in the previous poll and for women it went up to 2.10 from 2.03, putting a halt to declines in those figures.

The number of men and women who believe that the husband should work and the wife should stay home hit a record low. Only 36 percent of men hold that belief, dropping from 62 percent in 1992, while women were at 29 percent, down from 50 percent.