Nur Aisyah, a 30-year-old civil servant, has spent the past couple of years looking for a partner, with little to show for it.
asserted
Aisyah → spend → it
Nur rarely meets men through work or her hobbies and finds dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble “terrible”, with potential suitors either putting scant effort into their profile or struggling to hold a conversation over text.
asserted
suitors → meet → text
Recommended Stories
list of 4 items- list 1 of 4Cristiano Ronaldo can return to Portugal team if he wants, says Jesus
- list 2 of 4‘Everyone knew’: Canada boss Marsch wants Man City relegated for breaches
- list 3 of 4Israel face spitting allegation as Ireland boss ‘delighted’ after ties over
- list 4 of 4Four
asserted
ties → return → allegation
African leaders issue joint declaration as Ethiopia war escalates
Nur is open to having children but also struggles to imagine raising them in a city where housing and childcare costs are high, and where the burden of childcare typically falls hardest on women.
asserted
burden → issue → women
“I feel slightly pessimistic about the future as a whole,” Nur, who asked to use a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera.
asserted
who → feel → Jazeera
So when Singapore’s technology agency GovTech recently rolled out FirstDate, a dating platform for public servants that uses a Nobel-winning algorithm, Nur signed up out of curiosity
“It’s more of the mindset of ‘Why not?’” she said.
asserted
she → roll → mindset
“It makes quite a funny story if something did come out of this.”
asserted
something → make → this
Born out of GovTech’s annual hackathon, where staff develop and test new ideas, FirstDate is being piloted among single government employees aged 21 to 35.
asserted
FirstDate → bear → employees
Participants log in using their national digital ID and answer a survey about their interests, habits and values before being matched with one prospective partner at a time.
asserted
Participants → log → time
Sign-ups for the pilot closed on Monday.
asserted
ups → close → Monday
GovTech has told local media that no decision has been made on whether to expand the service beyond employees at government agencies.
asserted
decision → tell → agencies
Singapore’s decision to get into the matchmaking game is its latest attempt to lift a birthrate that has sunk to historic lows.
asserted
that → get → lows
Fewer than 30,000 babies were born in the Southeast Asian city-state in 2025, bringing the fertility rate to a record low of 0.87.
asserted
babies → bear → 0.87
In August, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced a series of new measures to support families, including almost 70,000 Singapore dollars ($55,000) worth of financial benefits for every child from birth until age 17.
asserted
Wong → announce → age
For Singapore, whose six million citizens are practically the city-state’s only resource, the prospect of a shrinking, fast-ageing population is existential.
asserted
prospect → shrink → population
In February, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong warned that without intervention, the citizen population could begin to shrink by the early 2040s, leaving fewer workers to care for the elderly.
uncertain
population → warn → elderly
Singapore already leans heavily on immigration to meet its workforce needs, with the government expecting to take in 25,000 to 30,000 new citizens annually over the next five years, a politically sensitive influx in a country whose 6.2 million inhabitants fill an area less than half the size of London.
asserted
inhabitants → lean → London
Yet even as Singapore’s bureaucrats urge people to have babies, many Singaporeans have enthusiastically embraced a child-free lifestyle, preferring to reap the benefits of living in a double-income household with fewer bills or to lavish their attention on pets.
asserted
Singaporeans → urge → pets
Singapore has never been shy about meddling in matters of the heart.
asserted
Singapore → meddle → heart
In a 1983 speech that sparked what became known as the “Great Marriage Debate”, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father and longest-serving prime minister, warned that graduates, especially women, were marrying late and having fewer children than the less educated.
asserted
graduates → spark → educated
The following year, Lee’s government introduced the controversial Graduate Mothers’ Scheme, which prioritised the children of university-educated mothers in school admissions.
asserted
which → introduce → admissions
Around the same time, the government established the Social Development Unit (SDU) to organise events where graduate singles could mingle, prompting some Singaporeans to joke that the body’s initials should stand for “Single, Desperate and Ugly”.
uncertain
initials → establish → Singaporeans
Critics called the agency elitist, and a separate body for those with only secondary school qualifications followed in 1985.
asserted
body → call → 1985
“We have a highly interventionist government, even in a private sphere of love and marriage,” Tan Ern Ser, adjunct principal research fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.
asserted
Ser → have → Jazeera
Tan said that although past governments’ attempts to play matchmaker were neither “significant nor cost effective”, Singapore’s current generation of bureaucrats is no less eager to involve themselves in the dating game, using the power of technology.
asserted
generation → say → technology
Still, Tan said, a government-backed platform does not mark a return to the era of arranged marriages, and “couples who are identified as compatible could still have a love match.”
uncertain
who → say → match
FirstDate relies on the Gale-Shapley algorithm, devised by mathematicians David Gale and Lloyd Shapley in 1962, which pairs people according to the ranked preferences of each side.
uncertain
which → rely → side
Shapley shared the 2012 Nobel memorial prize in economics for discovering the algorithm, versions of which are used in school admissions and medical residency placements.
asserted
versions → share → admissions
“This is a fundamentally different approach from most dating apps,” Jean Liu, an associate professor of psychology at the Singapore Institute of Technology, told Al Jazeera.
asserted
Liu → tell → Jazeera
“It is more akin to offline matchmaking, with endless profile swiping replaced by a single match.”
asserted
swiping → replace → match
That FirstDate grew out of a hackathon, Liu said, reflects “an appetite to innovate on the nation’s ‘hard problems'”.
asserted
Liu → grow → problems
Whether it will help people find love any better than mainstream dating apps is another matter.
asserted
people → help → apps
Questionnaires have limited value in predicting whether two people will hit it off, and the matches are only as good as the pool of people who join, Liu said.
asserted
Liu → have → people
“The process may break down if too few people sign up.”
uncertain
people → break → ?
The app’s greatest value, Liu said, may be in giving the government an opportunity to evaluate and publish dating data, something app companies, which treat their algorithms as sensitive company information, rarely do.
uncertain
which → say → information
Singapore is not alone in trying to pair up singles.
asserted
Singapore → try → singles
Tokyo’s metropolitan government launched Tokyo Enmusubi, an AI-powered dating app, in 2024, while the Seoul government’s “Seoulting” programme hosts curated blind dates at landmarks such as the Han River.
asserted
programme → launch → River
Online, Singaporeans’ reactions to their government’s latest bid to play cupid have ranged from scorn to amusement.
asserted
reactions → play → amusement
Some commentators have dismissed FirstDate as a waste of public money, while others have joked about “state-assigned spouses” and whether finding love will now be included among their work targets.
asserted
finding → dismiss → targets
Jamie, a government employee who works in education, received the email inviting her to join the platform but has no plans to sign up.
“I think it’s quite cringe.
asserted
it → work → plans
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
