November 1, 2018

Last month’s Population in Brief report released by the Prime Minister’s Office reported that the number of singles had increased. This is especially so among Singaporean women aged 25 to 29. It has resulted in a wave of criticism directed towards the government’s social development programmes as being a waste of time and money.

In a commentary for Channel News Asia, Dr Kelvin Seah (Department of Economics) cautioned against unfairly attributing the rise of singlehood to the ineffectiveness of the matchmaking programmes. He determined that other factors, like an increase in females entering the labour market, may have also contributed to the rise in singlehood due to more time being spent working and less time spent dating.

Dr Seah asserts that present-day matchmaking activities may have a social stigma attached to them which reduces their potential for higher participation rates. He proposed that public education and advertisements may help to shift mindsets and normalize the search for a partner, which may improve the effectiveness of matchmaking programmes. Furthermore, he suggests that matchmaking programmes are at present inhibited by age restrictions imposed on their activities. Dr Seah feels they can expand their outreach by removing such restrictions to allow people from different age groups to mingle.

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