SINGAPORE: The latest General Household Survey (GHS) offers a nuanced picture of marriage and family life in Singapore. At first glance, the statistics appear contradictory. More young adults remain single well into their thirties than five years ago, while completed fertility among married women continues to decline.
Yet by their 40s, the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans are married, and married-couple households remain the dominant family arrangement. Married couples are also increasingly dual-income, which reflects the changing economic realities of family life.
The central question, then, is not whether Singaporeans still value marriage. The evidence indicates that they do. It is how the meaning, timing and expectations surrounding marriage have evolved. Marriage today appears less a default transition into adulthood than a carefully considered life project requiring emotional readiness, financial security, and relationship confidence.
Delayed, not declining
The most striking trend is the continued rise in singlehood among younger adults.
Compared with 2020, larger proportions of those aged 25 to 34 remain unmarried, with the sharpest increases among women aged 25 to 29 and men aged 30 to 34. Yet this gap largely closes by the late 40s, when most (increasing modestly from 85.9 per cent to 86.1per cent for men, and from 84.7 per cent to 85.9 per cent for women between 2020 and 2025 have been married.
This pattern is better understood as delayed rather than declining marriage. Marriage remains central to the life course, but individuals are becoming increasingly selective about when they marry.
Earlier generations treated marriage as the transition into adulthood. Today’s young adults are more likely to regard adulthood as something that should come first.
Stable employment, financial independence, housing security, emotional maturity, and confidence in one’s relationship are increasingly perceived as prerequisites rather than outcomes of marriage.
The shift has structural roots. Over 90 per cent of those aged 25 to 34 now hold post-secondary qualifications. Longer educational trajectories, more demanding careers, and greater opportunities for personal development naturally postpone family formation. Rather than signalling a rejection of marriage, later marriage reflects increasingly careful decision-making about one of life’s most consequential commitments.
From specialised economic institution to partnership
Household statistics further reveal how marriage itself has changed. Dual-income couples now form 56.6 per cent of married couples, up from 52.5 per cent in 2020, while households relying solely on the husband’s income continue to decline in almost every age group.
Historically, marriage often involved complementary gender roles in which men specialised in paid work while women specialised in caregiving.
As women become better educated and their labour-force participation has risen, this economic interdependence has become less central. Instead, couples increasingly expect emotional intimacy, mutual respect, effective communication, and shared decision-making.
Paradoxically, this may make marriage both more attractive and more demanding. Marriage no longer happens primarily because society expects it, but because individuals believe they have found the “right” partner. Compatibility, emotional support, and shared values become increasingly important criteria. Consequently, partner search often takes longer, and marriage becomes more selective rather than less valued.
Marriage and parenthood come apart
Perhaps the most important development that the survey reveals concerns the changing relationship between marriage and parenthood.
While marriage remains nearly universal by midlife, fertility within marriage continues to decline. Among ever-married women aged 40 to49, the average number of children has fallen from 1.76 to 1.67 over the past five years, with fewer having two or more and more having one or none.
These statistics suggest that marriage and childbearing are becoming increasingly decoupled. Marriage remains a highly institutionalised social norm, but having children has become a more discretionary decision. Increasingly, couples distinguish between wanting to marry and wanting to become parents.
This reflects changing social norms rather than declining family values. Contemporary parenthood has become increasingly intensive. Parents invest substantial financial, emotional, and temporal resources in each child.
Raising children today involves considerable commitments to education, enrichment activities, emotional development, and future opportunities. Many couples therefore decide not according to how many children they ideally desire, but how many they believe they can responsibly raise while maintaining the quality of family life they aspire to provide.
My ongoing qualitative research with married couples echoes this interpretation. Many participants describe parenthood not simply as a biological milestone but as a profound relational commitment requiring sufficient emotional readiness, financial stability, and confidence in their marital relationship. Rather than questioning the value of children, couples often emphasise their desire to provide each child with adequate time, attention, and opportunities. Smaller family sizes therefore reflect changing standards of parenthood rather than diminishing commitment to family.
What this means for policy
Underlying these trends is a broader transformation in social norms. Marriage remains widely valued, but it is increasingly understood as a voluntary partnership centred on compatibility, emotional well-being, equality and mutual support rather than an obligatory life stage.
This individualisation does not imply greater selfishness. Instead, individuals increasingly recognise that an unsuccessful marriage may impose greater long-term costs than postponing marriage until they feel adequately prepared. Delayed marriage thus reflects risk management as much as changing preferences. Young adults are investing more effort in ensuring that marriage, once entered, will be stable and satisfying.
These changing expectations carry important implications for family policy. Efforts to encourage earlier marriage alone are unlikely to address the underlying reasons why people postpone family formation. Instead, policy may increasingly need to reduce the uncertainties surrounding the transition into marriage and parenthood.
Housing affordability and timely access to housing remain important. Equally significant are workplace cultures that support work-life balance, flexible working arrangements, and caregiving responsibilities without penalising career progression.
As marriages increasingly depend upon relationship quality rather than economic necessity, relationship education and programmes that strengthen communication and conflict resolution may also become more valuable. Supporting marriages after they are formed may ultimately be as important as encouraging marriages in the first place.
The growing prevalence of dual-career households further underscores the importance of policies that enable couples to balance work and family responsibilities. Affordable childcare, flexible employment practices, and supportive organisational cultures can reduce the opportunity costs of parenthood while allowing both partners to maintain meaningful careers. Such measures strengthen not only fertility but also marital quality and family well-being.
The latest GHS suggests that marriage remains remarkably resilient in Singapore. Most Singaporeans continue to marry, and marriage remains the central institution around which family life is organised. What has changed is not the value placed on marriage, but the conditions under which people feel prepared to enter it — and, increasingly, the separate calculation they make about children.
The future of Singapore’s family landscape will depend not only on whether people marry, but on how they envision married life and parenthood in a rapidly changing society.
Rather than witnessing the deinstitutionalisation of marriage, Singapore may instead be experiencing its reinstitutionalisation as a high-investment, high-expectation institution.
Zheng Mu is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Co-Director of Centre for Family and Population Research, National University of Singapore.
Top photo from Unsplash.