IN HIS letter on Monday ('What it means to be Singaporean') Mr Boon Jiahao said that many Singaporean students in Australia might consider living there because of Australia's better emphasis on work-life balance.

Mr Boon's view that Singaporeans are comparatively overworked and underpaid is a common misconception.

In Singapore, I have never had a boss who did not respect my privacy after work or on weekends. In Australia, I had my fair share of unreasonable bosses.

Many of my friends working in Singapore, who are regularly recalled on weekends and after 11pm, are lawyers in their first year out of university with an annual pay of almost $80,000?a year, excluding bonuses, or working in renowned consulting firms which have highly accelerated salary progressions and career development paths.

Sorry, but if you are earning nearly $100,000 a year in your first year out of university, and expect to make an even larger pile of money within five years of graduation, you do not get to gripe about the lack of work-life balance.

Many Australian firms do not offer more than 10 days of paid medical leave a year, nor is there legislated paid maternity leave.

Most government departments and large companies in Singapore give between 14 and 60 days of paid medical leave (including hospitalisation) a year, four months of paid maternity leave, and generous childcare leave of up to six days per child under 12. An increasing number of companies allow staff to work at home for up to two days a month.

My Australian contacts are shocked when I reel off these facts. After taking 20 days' leave, childcare leave, medical leave and maternity leave, how many days a year do some of us work? Plus we are not slugged with high tax rates to support this rather generous system.

?Singaporeans should really put an end to the romanticised vision they have of Australia, where everyone is in some sort of workers' nirvana.

Singapore does not have a monopoly on the most hardworking, ambitious people, nor does Australia have a monopoly on workers who enjoy the best work-life balance.

Anthony Prakasam

This article was first published in The Straits Times.