Singapore turns matchmaker amid rock-bottom birthrate

Singapore – Nur Aisyah, a 30-year-old civil servant, has spent the past couple of years looking for a partner, with little to show for it.Nur rarely meets men through work or her hobbies and finds dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble “terrible”, with potential suitors either putting scant effort into their profile or struggling to hold a conversation over text.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Cristiano Ronaldo can return to Portugal team if he wants, says Jesuslist 2 of 4‘Everyone knew’: Canada boss Marsch wants Man City relegated for breacheslist 3 of 4Israel face spitting allegation as Ireland boss ‘delighted’ after ties overlist 4 of 4Four African leaders issue joint declaration as Ethiopia war escalatesend of listNur is open to having children but also struggles to imagine raising them in a city where housing and childcare costs are high, and where the burden of childcare typically falls hardest on women.“I feel slightly pessimistic about the future as a whole,” Nur, who asked to use a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera.So when Singapore’s technology agency GovTech recently rolled out FirstDate, a dating platform for public servants that uses a Nobel-winning algorithm, Nu...