Singapore debuts a state-backed dating app for young government workers as it works to slow a demographic crisis

Singapore is asking its young government workers to trust the state to find them love matches. FirstDate , a government-built dating platform being piloted in Singapore, is the latest in a slew of state-backed matchmaking initiatives against the backdrop of Asia's persistently low fertility rates. It follows Japan's AI-powered dating app Tokyo Enmusubi and South Korea's Seoulting , programs launched by the Tokyo and Seoul governments in 2024. The experiments emerge amid a rising demographic crisis — official government data put the total fertility rate at 0.80 children per woman in South Korea , 0.87 in Singapore and 1.14 in Japan — among the lowest in the world and far below the replacement level of 2.1.