I realised that most of my friends now are single and living mostly with their parents. They are also in their forties to fifties’ age group though some belonged in their mid-thirties.
Most of them are also non-graduates and tend to struggle a little in their career path.
They have average looks and some come with fabulous personality but they could not do enough to settle down with our local women given the insufficient income that they could earn with their limited skills and qualification.
I checked the Singapore government statistics on our general marriage rate and came out with some shocking revelation. Only 39.4 men were married compared to every 1, 000 unmarried males in year 2010. Our female counterparts also did not fare better as only 37.2 females were married compared to 1, 000 unmarried females (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/people/marriages.pdf).
Channel News Asia has also reported on 12 January this year that there was a spike in the number of singles in Singapore.:-
“The Department of Statistics (DOS) said among Singapore citizens aged 30-34 years old, the proportion of singles rose a significant 10 points to 43 per cent for males, and nine points to 31 per cent for females.
In the first of a series of statistical releases by the 2010 Census of Population, the department said singlehood was most common among males who don’t have secondary qualifications and graduate females.
At age 40-44 years, 24 per cent of citizen males with below secondary qualifications were single in 2010, compared to 13 per cent of university graduates.
For citizen females, 23 per cent of graduates aged 40-44 years old were single in 2010, compared to 11 per cent among females with below secondary qualifications.”
Introduction
Our local women have progressed in leaps and bounds academically and given the equal opportunities in the work places, have excelled in their career paths so much so that many local men are wary of dating a “career woman”.
Dr Ng Eng Han, then-Minister for Education has commented in the International Women’s Day event on 1 Mar 2009:
“Already, female students make up slightly over half of our local university intake every year compared to 45% twenty years ago. At the polytechnic level, too, the proportion of female student intake has risen to about 48% in 2007, from just 30% twenty years ago. Female students have excelled in academic areas, equal to and in some areas surpassing their male counterparts. It would be only a matter of time before they become increasingly involved in all spheres of society and decision making. The role of women will rise in Singapore.”
Local women hard to date?
Though our modern women have made great strides in society, our local men have face all kinds of obstacles when they started out.
For example, due to the fact that our males have to serve 2 years of national service followed by another 3-4 years of tertiary study after that, most of our men could only consider marriage at the late age of 30-32 years old i.e. if they could find a girl to marry them.
Moreover, the global financial crisis has relegated many engineers and IT professionals to the sidelines and many are now engaging in under-employed vocation such as cab drivers or property agents.
If you are a single guy, under employed and in your mid thirties, there is a high chance that you may not ever get hitched.
It is also no open secret that our women folks can land a job easier than men due perhaps to the current high demand in the office-bound banking/financial services.
Most other popular clerical and administrative work also prefer female workers.
In status-conscious Singapore, most males also prefer to marry down or at least at the same level whereas women prefer someone with similar educational level if possible.
Women do not mind marrying downwards but the guys must be adequately employed or at least could earn enough to provide for the family.
Given the loop-sided economic employment environment here, it is no wonder that many Singaporean guys right now prefer to stay single – either by choice or necessity.
Want to join the dating game?
First, get a car or be a professional – it will help you get loads of dates. If not, your telephone book will be empty.
Not a graduate or worse currently jobless? Go wait at the queue far behind…
Most single males find that our well-educated women are career-minded and demanding. Besides all the mandatory five Cs that Singaporeans are familiar with, they also now want their men to have compassion, care and commitment.
Recently, our local men have started to shun dating our well-heeled local women as they are termed “hard to please and difficult to maintain”.
That is probably why our local males have courted and married foreign brides by the thousands and the increasing trend is disturbing.
In a research article entitled “Marrying from ‘Asia’ to Singapore” conducted by Lund University 2010, the author Tingting CHEN, highlighted the emerging trend of the foreign bride legion in Singapore.
“According to Population in Brief 2009, marriages involving a citizen and a non-citizen have grown by 2.9% between 1998 and 2008, while marriages involving two citizens have declined by 9.2% over the same period.
In particular, nearly one-fourth of the total number of marriages in 2008 were between a male citizen or PR and a female nonresident, while there were only 1,642 cases, out of the overall 24,596 marriages of the year, that involved a male non-resident to a female citizen or PR,. In other words, marriages that involve a male resident and a female non-resident have constituted the major trend of transnational marriages in Singapore. Statistics also indicates that 6,160 out of 6,360 noncitizen brides in 2008 were of Asian origin.”
Having too many foreign brides in the country not only endanger our fragile population social fabric as it is built on a harmonious multi- racial platform but also deny many of our local women any decent chances of getting hitched.
In 2009, then-Minister of Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, commented that divorce between Singaporean grooms and their foreign brides constituted 11% of the total marriages annulled for year 2008 (Diva & The Daily Chilli Oct 20, 2009).
He further commented that divorce rate of transnational marriages is not significantly different from other marriages. However, it remains to be seen how much of a social cost transnational marriages have been to our society.
Financial cost of getting married
It doesn’t help also that most weddings will set us back by a minimum of $30, 000 without considering the housing part yet.
The situation is worsened by our difficult-to-get HDB houses, even though it is considered highly subsidized – it still costs around $300,000 for a brand new BTO (built-to-order) flat and more over, you have to wait for between 2-3 years before it is ready for occupation.
If you have money, you can go for the faster option of buying a resale HDB flat which will set you back by about $400, 000 for a 4-room flat in a decent location. The cash-over-valuation is generally priced at $30, 000 on average and can only be paid in cash. The cash portion of the property sales has been the biggest bugbear of most young couples desiring to purchase a resale HDB flat.
This is probably one massive reason why our locals are not eager to get hitched as the housing issue can be a real deterrence. Simply put, if you have no money you don’t get marry.
People generally are concerned that they could not financially maintain a family and there are genuine reasons why so many Singaporeans are putting off ever having relationship and starting a family here.
In Singapore, a nice church friend housed me in his 4-room HDB flat at Punggol – where he co-owned with his mum.
He is already 52 years old, always wanted to get married but just didn’t manage to pull it off. Though my friend is not the wealthy kind, he has a consistent income and is not the type who fools around.
After a few dates, he has stopped to look around though will consider tying the knot if the right person comes along,
A few friends I met at Transitioning.org are also single, in their forties and almost never think of ever getting married due either to the age factor or that they are in regular transition.
Before coming over to Sydney last month, I also met up with a good-looking 35-year-old PMET who is now working in the educational field. After a few unsuccessful flings during his hay days, he has also hung up his telephone book and focusing on being the most happy Mr Single guy around.
“I have stop looking for the past few years, Gilbert,” he confided in me over Yun Kun morning breakfast.
“Moreover, I am the lone-ranger kind and tend to move around better on my own. Of course, if the right girl comes along, I will consider getting hitched but I am happily single and not desperate to look around.”
He seemed genuinely happy and even left for a short Bangkok holiday after meeting me.
Marriages – hard facts and figures
For the past six recent years, an average of around 24, 000 marriages were recorded of which there were also 7, 000 divorces – meaning that about one in three marriages would be annulled (Singapore Department of Statistics Statistics on Marriages and Divorces, 2010).
Though the number of annual marriages has hold steady, the divorce rate seems to be increasing – abeit slowly – from the 6,000 mark to the recent 7, 000 mark per annum.
Finances, lack of communication and compatibility were the top three reasons for people annulling their marriages. The rise in divorces has also deterred many singles from tying the knot. Many would have known of a relative. friend or colleague who is divorced and they are the tough life’s examples of a marriage that went horribly wrong.
However, the more worrying figure is the statistics on the general marriage rate. For example, as per 1, 000 unmarried resident males, the marriage rate holds steady at about 43 married males for the past few years till 2010 when there is a plunge to 39 married males. The same applies to the general marriage rate for females when it holds steady at about 41 married females the past few years before plunging on year 2010 to 37 married females (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/stats/themes/people/marriages.pdf).
The ratio of an average of around 38 married males/females to every 1, 000 unmarried males/females is considered rather low and there may be more singles living in Singaporeans than we may know.
Perhaps due to the global financial crisis in year 2008, people were not dating as aggressively as before due to the gloomy economic conditions and thus there were lesser marriages recorded in 2010.
It roughly takes about 2-3 years for people to date and prepared for a wedding so this is probably why there was this slight decrease in marriage rate for year 2010. The recent property hike also may have deter some people from taking the plunge.
Most males also married at the median age of 30 years old whereas for females it will be 28 years old – this has not changed for the past six years on record.
Seventy five percent of the marriages were also first marriages compared to 25% recorded subsequent marriages.
Not hype to get married now?
Besides our problematic housing issue and financial reason, there is no more hype to getting married now as our high divorce rate is negating any feel-good effect that a marriage will bring.
I remembered most of my baby boomer friends were married and none wanted to remain a single.
We all started to date immediately after working and settled down between the age of 28-32 years old.
I married at the age of 32 years old after a few years of dating. I wanted to settle down as it felt good to have a family and it seemed progressive – moreover most of my friends were already married by age 30 years old.
There was this social pressure that crept up on you when you reached a certain age and most readers will know what I mean.
After working for a good ten years, I managed to have quite a sizeable CPF account and fortunately housing was cheap then.
We managed to select a HDB brand new executive flat at Pasir Ris costing only $143, 000. We paid the down payment using my CPF and borrowed $15, 000 from the bank to simply renovate our flat.
The HDB then was very pro-family and flats were built before occupation i.e. they just build flats without considering the fact that they would be occupied. Nowadays, you have to select a flat, pay the deposit and wait three years for the flat to be ready.
I also heard that now the same HDB BTO executive flats cost around $500, 000 – a sum that is way beyond the affordability of the average Singaporean couples starting out on their first lodging.
It felt good to be married during my era as somehow it meant that I have moved on and progressed as a person.
Many people will also view you negatively if you stay single then – either you have some serious personality issue or a sexual identity problem.
However, 20 years later, many Singaporeans nowadays do not take to marriage as eagerly compared to my generation of baby boomers. Our modern fast-paced society of the faceless internet age coupled with a drastically escalating cost of living have deter many of our younger people from ever committing to a marital relationship.
Local men and women at odds with each other?
The high cost of living coupled with our low salary base have not encouraged many of our males to ignite the wooing engine.
Our inflation rate reaches a 3-year high of 5.7% as of August this year due mainly to housing prices soaring to 9.9% compared to a year ago. Transport cost also went up the roof jumping 12.5% (www.singstat.gov.sg ).
On the other hand, our income level has remained flat for a long while and some even could not command the same pay as before when they switch jobs due to the absence of a minimum wage policy in our country.
Moreover, there is also the recent social misnomer that our men and women are not dating each other as aggressively as before.
Many local women have also complained that our local men are “stingy, calculative and manipulative” i.e. they will only date you if they find that you are capable of sharing the family’s maintenance cost. You will be termed a financial liability if you are a small-time clerk earning $1,500 a month.
To complicate matters further, though living in a ultra-modern society here, many of our local women still prefer the men to initiate the first move.
Our local men – known to be shy, inhibited and socially awkward, do need some lessons to be taught in school on how to date a woman.
Many could not muster enough courage to date their ideal woman for fear of being rejected and most women have complained that our local men are nerds and uneasy when out on a date.
Many fumble during dates and could not keep up with the socializing skills of their female counterparts.
When they are ever in a serious long term relationship, many women also accused our local men of being too much of a male chauvinist and not romantic enough.
It is for this reason that many local women preferred men from the US, Australia or Europe as they are more romantic and eager to please. They could also communicate better than our local guys.
Most women, after marriage. also complained that they have to tend to their kids after work as our local men could only return home and stare at the TV box every night. Most of our local blokes also do not take to doing housework readily.
A good number also took on the role of breadwinner at home when their husbands could not earn enough or worse stay unemployed for a long period.
On the other hand, local men have complained that our local women are “materialistic, arrogant and domineering”.
Many men said that our women could not compromise at all – even on the smallest thing and they also want to have the final say in everything.
A friend who left his wife-to-be, days before the wedding, told me that he could not stomach it anymore when she vetoed out anything that he has suggested while preparing for the big day.
“How to live with her forever when I could not take it just for the few weeks?” he told me in despair.
By the way, he is now happily married to a foreign bride from China.
However, Lianhe Wanbao in February this year quoted an unnamed international agency, reported that Singapore women were ranked the ‘most ideal’ for marriage partners based on qualities such as beauty, loyalty, adherence to tradition, initiative and fluency in English.
Conclusion
As Singapore grapples with one of the lowest fertility rate in the world – we have a total fertility rate of less than 1.2, which is well below the population replacement rate, more can be done by the government to try and make things easier for our young couples to get hitched.
In an article “Rising housing prices and declining fertility” (asiasingapore.blog 3 Seo 2011), the author commented that there could be a direct co-relation between the two elements – rising property prices and declining fertility.
“In the “Ask: NUS Economist” column of The Straits Times, Mr. Abeysinghe shares a very interesting graph which implies a positive relationship between Housing Affordability Index (HAI) and Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of Singapore[1]. Positive relationship means when HAI increases, TFR also increases. So in the past when housing became less affordable, fertility declined and when housing became more affordable, fertility rose. “
As getting a roof is a contentious issue for young couples getting hitched now, it makes sense that our government tries to get it’s act together by solving the housing problem once and for all.
Why should we try to import young foreign professionals into our country to solve the perpetual low birth-rate problem when we still have many young abled singles in our country who could not get married because of our property dead lock?
Moreover, anyone who has to wait a few years before they can occupy their build-to-order government housing will not want to give birth to more children as they are already advanced in years.
It will be fortunate if they can give birth to only one child.
Written by: Gilbert Goh
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Gilbert, it’s quite sad but true. Many of my peers among the locals in Singapore said that they find it hard to date Singaporean women because they find them not only ‘picky’, but difficult to please with the materialistic values at play here. It gets harder too when you are effectively seeking to get ahead in the rat race, because you simply do not have time at all. I remember that when in Singapore, I was drifting from freelance to freelance without a guarantee of a permanent job, that especially when I was a graduate and in my 30′s. A former colleague of mine had told me before that once a Singaporean man starts hitting his late 30′s, the chance of him getting married then becomes almost marginal, and especially if he decides to hang up his telephone book and stop dating or end his current relationship, he risks being single for the rest of the later half of his life. Perceivably, her observations are more anecdotal than real, but I think that there is a point to what you have said about the unfavorable social circumstances not favoring marriage or high birth rates. In Japan, where the work stress and costs of livings are rocketing due to inflation, many professionals choose not to give birth and have children although they might be married. Socially, it appears that we are going in that direction, albeit worse insofar as our government is importing in foreigners at the expense of our citizens.
“If you are a single guy, under employed and in your mid thirties, there is a high chance that you may not ever get hitched.”
Sad but it is true. It has happened on me, and no wonder most of my friends are married China girls, even though they are university graduate from overseas uni… While i am in a relationship with a Foreigner gal at the moment.
Although my gf works as a high flying career lady, she doesn’t mind i am only a polytechnic graduate, unemployed and doesnt have a stable financial background. A big difference in mentally and attitude towards relationship and treating on men you found in gals between foreigner gals and SG gals.
Good article.
Just an additional pt: Singstat combines Citizens & PRs as “locals”.
Therefore, the author may wish to clarify whether “local women” means only home-grown SG citizen women.
Hi dolphin81,
Thanks for your comment.
I would think that the stats are meant for our local women only i.e. home-grown SG citizens.
Nevertheless, seeing how MOM has lumped the PRs together with our local citizens while computing the jobless figures, there is every chance that Singstat may do the same here.
Take care.
Gilbert Goh
Unlike others, I don’t blame SG women for being “materialistic”. It is very expensive to live in Singapore. Even 4 room public housing cost $400k…which means you should have household income of $7k and above, and this is also assuming you can keep this income level for 30 years to service your housing loan!
If starting a family, the costs will increase exponentially with the baby. So, if SG women can’t find someone financially stable and earning at least middle income, it is better to remain single. No point starting a family and subject your kids to financial problems and other family problems that come with it.
I would say foreign women still have no idea how much it costs to have a family in Singapore, earning S$3k to them seems like a lot of money.
The author of this article has misinterpreted and misrepresented the statistics.
A marriage rate of 39.4 per 1000 males, means that out of every 1000 males, 39.4 have got married in the past year. The remaining 960.6 males consists of males who ARE ALREADY MARRIED, in addition to those who still remain single.
The statistics certainly don’t mean that we have 960 unmarried males for every 39 married males. I think most of our personal observations can easily verify that the ratio cannot be SO SKEWED.
Hi Mathia,
I had a look at the stats.
It clearly stated that “39.4 Males (Per 1,000 UNMARRIED resident males)”, I’m pretty sure that unmarried = single, unlike what you mentioned which consists of married males.
So yes, the other 60.6 per 1000 unmarried males are indeed SINGLE.
Hi Mathia and Ervin,
I am afraid that both of you are right in some sense.
39.4 males are married out of every 1,000 unmarried males meaning that there are 39.4 men out there who are married for every 1,000 unmarried men who could be babies, children, old single men including the divorced or widowed.
However, the figures still seem a bit low for those who are married.
Hope this helps to settle the confusion with the stats.
Gilbert Goh
The article is written from a man’s perspective. I know of materialistic men who want their future wives to earn the same salary, if not more than the men. The men also expect their future wives to share the household bills 50-50, wedding expenses & BTO flats also 50-50. But the housework and upbringing of kids are usually done by the wives or maids if they can afford.
I have never been in a relationship before and have decided to remain single for the rest of my life. I don’t have high expectations of the future husband. Firstly, he must have a decent job to provide for a decent life. I don’t need him to have a car, just a BTO flat and a kind heart. I just expect him not to smoke, drink, gamble or womanise. These are basic expectations and not high.
However, I find life too hectic and expensive here to have kids. I feel that I don’t have $$ and energy to care for kids. The education system is also too stressful for kids with a lot of projects etc. So the best for me is to remain single. I am already struggling to meet ends meet, not would not want kids to suffer along with me.
Hi Lady,
Thanks for your comment.
Yes it’s written from a male perspective obviously.
I am glad that you have provided the female version here.
Its ok to stay single especially in this stressful uncertain age.
Many people who are married may have regretted their decision as indeed the stress level of bringing up a family in Singapore is really high.
The sky high divorces in our country are hard reminders that marriages are not a bed of roses and may not be for everyone.
Do cultivate more friends along the way so that you won’t feel lonely and isolated.
I will be emailing you an online interview questionaire on why Singaporeans chose to remain single.
Is it ok with you? Take care.
Gilbert
@ Lady:
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I’m having the same thoughts as you if i want to get marry in SG. The lifestyle here is too stressful and imagine if you are out of job for a long period of time. How you going to feed your kids…
Sometimes, is really by choice, that the best way is to remain single. And looking back to the bottom line of the problem. It is really the policy that kill the singlehood life in sg.
Let’s see, getting married to local women means my money is her money, her money is her money. Sex maybe once a week if lucky. Getting married= 30k? House ? Car ? Best part is when u get divorced, u’ll be left with no house and no money because of our superpower women’s charters.
I should stay single with my fairly good income and a professional job, getting a resale house on my own soon. My focus now is to provide for my old parents and my younger siblings. I see too many divorce cases.
Friend of mine been working more then 15yrs and as soon as he was retrenched, the next 8mths, his wife wanted a divorce because his income is 60% lesser then before. We all like good times, but can you be there when the storm comes? I’ll take that short Bangkok trip anytime rather then getting hitched here.
[...] Financial reasons for men who stay unmarried in Singapore. Only 39.4 men were married compared to every 1, 000 unmarried males in year 2010. Our female counterparts also did not fare better as only 37.2 females were married compared to 1, [...]