Can Singapore engineer love on dating apps? From public service to private romance

For Singaporean civil servant Clare*, finding a suitable lifelong partner has been an uphill battle. Swiping on dating apps soon became a chore after multiple unsuccessful first dates, so when the government launched its own platform, the 32-year-old was all for it.

“It’s like ‘Why not?’, and I think it does have a few screening procedures so it might save you some trouble like having to deal with impersonators or people who do not match with their advertised profiles,” said Clare, who requested not to use her real name.

Singapore launched dating platform FirstDate last month, as the city state grapples with a record-low fertility rate. While the platform has drawn criticism online for its limited eligibility range, observers say it is a good way to encourage first meetings for potential couples.

FirstDate is being piloted among government employees aged 21 to 35 by GovTech, which told local media there was no decision yet to expand the initiative beyond the public sector. The government agency has not provided figures on how many users in the sector meet its present criteria for the app.

Singapore’s public service workforce is about 158,000-strong as of March this year, according to the government job portal.

App users answer a survey about their interests and values, and the platform uses a Nobel Prize-winning algorithm to generate recommended pairings based on participants’ preferences and compatibility.

The first round of sign-ups closed on October 5 after emails on the platform were sent to public officers a week before. A matching cycle lasts about a month, according to local media reports.

Public reaction to the app has been mixed, with some online users arguing that limiting it to civil servants is elitist and that having an age limit implies an expiration date for relationships.

Many also said dating was not at the top of the priority list for young Singaporeans facing rising living costs.

A user said: “Just lower down the cost of living and when things are cheap, people will go out more often, go dating and have kids.”

The platform, which matches participants to one partner at a time, can still be effective for those who are serious about finding a partner, says Norman Li, psychology professor at the Singapore Management University.

“Today, people are overwhelmed with perceived choices – many of which are not even real choices – which makes it psychologically hard to settle down and stay with any one person,” he said.

But he noted that the agency faced the challenge of getting enough sign-ups to broaden the dating pool and increase users’ chances of perceiving potential matches as suitable and attractive partners.

“A major problem today is that people’s standards are too high for the market to clear, due to constant exposure to celebrities, internet and movie stars and dating app choices,” Li said.

For Jean Liu, associate professor of psychology at the Singapore Institute of Technology, restricting matches to a single one each cycle is a positive as it helps prevent dating fatigue and being overwhelmed by choices.

“You won’t have a few highly popular individuals flooded with attention, as you might on a typical app,” she said.

The platform launch comes amid the city state’s battle to raise its fertility rate, which sank to a low of 0.87 last year. The government has rolled out measures, including increasing childcare leave and lowering childcare fees, and set up an inter-agency work group to tackle the trend.

Li says FirstDate likely has similar goals to boost marriage and fertility.

The platform is the latest in a series of Singaporean initiatives aimed at matching singles.

In 1984, the government launched the Social Development Unit (SDU), which organised events for university graduates to meet up. In a speech a year earlier, founding father Lee Kuan Yew had warned that graduates were marrying late and having fewer children than the less educated.

A separate body, the Social Development Section (SDN), was created in 1985 for those with only secondary school qualifications. In 2009, both units were merged and renamed the Social Development Network to widen the dating pool and create more opportunities for singles to meet and eventually marry.

Li predicted FirstDate to be more successful than its predecessors. “The goals are the same as before, but SDU and SDN were event-based, which apparently didn’t attract too many people,” he said. “This time, a systematic dating app has been thoughtfully designed to create matches.”

But Liu noted that the initiatives were fundamentally different. FirstDate sprouted from a GovTech hackathon, she said, and should be best viewed as a government product trial that borrowed the agile and experimental approach of private tech.

She urged users to refrain from dismissing the platform because it was a government project.

“When others step in, whether the government or our own family members, it can feel orchestrated and ‘unromantic’,” she said. “However, if we look across history and in many parts of the world, relationships have often been arranged or brokered by families or communities.”

Daniel Goh, associate professor of sociology at the National University of Singapore, agreed it was premature to pass judgment on the platform since it was in its pilot phase.

“I would be shocked if the government does not open the platform to citizens if it is proven successful,” he said. “The question is: what is the threshold for success?”

Other Asian countries, faced with a similarly dipping birth rate, have also tried to play Cupid. In 2024, Japan launched a government-backed dating app which required users to prove they were committed to marriage, verify their income, and undergo an interview with the app operator.

As of June this year, 16,000 had registered on the app, 760 couples were in “serious relationships”, and 265 couples had tied the knot, according to Japanese government data.

Also in 2024, authorities in South Korea launched a dating programme for participants in Seoul to mingle during curated activities such as outdoor dining by the Han River.

Some 126 couples were matched during that event, prompting the city government to roll-out the second edition last month, which drew more than 2,300 singles aged 25 to 45 for 100 slots.

According to a 2024 survey by pollster YouGov, one in four Singaporeans used dating apps, with Gen Zs and millennials more likely than older generations to have done so.

Out of those who have swiped online, 59 per cent used Tinder – making it the most popular platform, and 46 per cent took to Coffee Meets Bagel.

Civil servant Clare, meanwhile, is keeping her hopes up despite not finding a match after the first round of pairings concluded on FirstDate.

“I’m slightly bummed, but I’ll wait for the next cycle to start to try again.”