Forum: Three dates in three years since coming back to Singapore
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While GovTech’s exploration of a government-run dating platform is encouraging, it risks addressing the symptom rather than the root cause of Singapore’s fertility woes (Free meals for first dates? Singpass login to deter catfishers? Survey seeks views to boost coupling, April 30).
I say this as a 33-year-old Singaporean woman who lived in Glasgow during the Covid-19 period. Despite lockdowns and restrictions then, I dated far more actively there than I ever have since returning home.
In the three years since coming back to Singapore, I have gone on only three dates. It is not because I do not want companionship or a family. It is because, like many Singaporeans, I often return home mentally drained after long and demanding workdays.
After standing shoulder to shoulder on crowded trains and enduring commutes that can take more than an hour each way, there is little energy left to socialise, meet someone new, or invest emotionally in building a relationship.
What worries me most is how normalised this has become. We accept packed MRT rides, long commutes and exhaustion as simply part of adult life in Singapore.
Yet when I lived in Scotland, I remember my dentist complaining about having to walk 10 minutes to work. It struck me how differently people viewed the quality of life and personal time.
Recent reports have already pointed to worsening mental strain in Singapore. A Straits Times article on the national mental health helpline, 1771, highlighted growing issues ranging from exam stress to caregiving burnout. Separately, a Randstad survey found that work-life balance is now the top priority for Gen Z, millennial and Gen X workers.
Younger Singaporeans increasingly value flexibility, healthier workplace cultures and time outside work. Many are willing to leave jobs that do not provide this. Salary alone is no longer enough to retain staff. Even married couples choose not to have children in Singapore due to long working hours, with caregiving often being left largely to domestic helpers and grandparents.
Singapore may not yet be ready for a nationwide four-day work week. However, hybrid work arrangements – something that functioned well just five years ago – should be more strongly encouraged.
Working from home even a few days a week can reduce commuting fatigue, ease pressure on public transport infrastructure and improve mental well-being.
More importantly, it gives people back time: time to date, to see family, to rest and to be functioning human beings outside of work.
If Singapore truly wants to encourage marriage and parenthood, then we need to create an environment where people have the mental capacity and emotional space for relationships to grow naturally. Otherwise, dating initiatives may simply become a plaster placed over a much deeper societal issue.
Rubini Nathan
