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Singapore has launched a government-backed dating service for public-sector workers as the city-state faces falling births and an ageing population.
BBC reported the launch on Wednesday, saying the initiative, called FirstDate, targets government workers aged 21 to 35.
FirstDate uses the Nobel Prize-winning Gale-Shapley algorithm to match participants with one potential partner at a time. The service describes itself as “a different approach to dating”, and its website also promises an end to “swipe fatigue”.
Participants sign in through Singapore’s national digital identity system, then complete a questionnaire covering their interests, habits, and values. The system uses their answers to identify potential matches.
The Gale-Shapley Stable Marriage algorithm was developed to create stable matches based on people’s preferences. The late mathematician Lloyd Shapley won the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on the algorithm. The system has since been used in school admissions and medical residency placements. It has also been adapted for some dating services.
However, FirstDate has received mixed reactions in Singapore. Some social media users have described the service as “dystopian”. Others have shown interest in trying it. Critics have questioned the age limit and the decision to restrict the pilot to government workers.
One Reddit user accused the government of prioritising fertility over helping people find partners.
“They are only doing this to raise the total fertility rate. They don’t actually [care] about whether we find a partner otherwise,” the user wrote.
The FirstDate pilot comes as Singapore faces growing demographic pressure. Fewer than 30,000 babies were born in Singapore in 2025. It was the first time the annual figure had fallen below 30,000 in six decades.
Meanwhile, about 26,500 people died in the same year. In August, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announced new measures to support families and encourage couples to have children. The measures include almost S$70,000 in financial support for each child through age 17.
Singapore has also tried government-backed matchmaking in the past. In 1984, it created the Social Development Unit to organise social activities for single university graduates. The programme later faced criticism over its focus on graduates.
The government then created another agency to promote marriage among non-graduates, and it eventually phased out both initiatives.
Singapore is not the first government to use technology to encourage relationships. In September 2024, Tokyo’s metropolitan government launched an AI-powered dating app for single residents.
Japanese government data released in July 2026 showed that the Tokyo initiative had been linked to 265 marriages. It remains unclear whether Singapore will eventually expand FirstDate to the wider public.
