Single-pore: Number of Singapore residents under 40 who never married rose from 2020 to 2025

SINGAPORE: According to the latest report from the Department of Statistics, there were more Singapore residents under the age of 40 who had never been married in 2025 than there were in 2020.

Moreover, the General Household Survey, released on June 30, showed that family sizes in Singapore have gone down.

The biggest increase among Singapore residents who have chosen to stay single is among those between the ages of 25 and 34. 

For example, among females ages 25 to 29, the proportion of never-marrieds in 2020 was 69%, compared to 73.4% in 2025. Among men between the ages of 30 and 34, meanwhile, it increased from 41.9% to 47.6% from 2020 to 2025.

Also, the average number of children born to resident females between the ages of 40 and 49 who have been or were married declined from 1.76 in 2020 to 1.67 in 2025. Among those aged 30 to 39, it also decreased from 1.4 in 2020 to 1.26 last year. 

In 2025, 58.4% of ever-married resident females aged between 40 and 49 had two or more children,  compared to 62.5% in 2020.

The number of married couple-based households with children also decreased in the last five years, from 50.4% recorded in 2020 to 47.6% last year. 

Interestingly, the number of Singapore residents who are married actually went up from 58.8% in 2020 to 61.8% in 2025. The report said that this is likely due to the ageing of the resident population, taken together with lower singlehood rates at older ages.

While Singapore’s resident population in 2020 was 4.04 million, in 2025, it was 4.20 million.

What Singaporeans are saying

Many commenters online said they were hardly surprised by the data in the report, as it seems to be in keeping with their lived experience.

“If given a choice between financial freedom to buy whatever you desire and living within your budget, what would most people choose? Marriage and starting a family are always a sacrifice,” one wrote. 

Another added that “a single income is no longer enough, and dual-income households have become a necessity. More financial stress = fewer marriages and fewer kids. It’s not that young people don’t want families; they’re struggling to afford one”

“That’s a global phenomenon… people don’t want marriage or kids. Shrinking population. Not uniquely Singapore,” a commenter wrote, pointing out that Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and his wife have no children, and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah, who heads a task force aimed to reverse Singapore’s historic low birth rate, is single herself. /TISG

Read also: Why birth rates are falling across Southeast Asia, not just Singapore