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

A couple posing for a pre-wedding photoshoot in Singapore.Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesSingapore 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.Government intervention in a field as personal as romance has prompted skepticism and jokes among social-media users, some of whom describe the initiative as "dystopian.""Finally, state-assigned spouses," one Reddit user wrote in a discussion of the platform.But the Asian city-state's matchmaking service may have conventional dating apps beat on certain fronts, experts said.State-verified dating...