Singapore births fall to lowest since independence

With birth rates falling at an unprecedented pace, Singapore’s citizen population may start to shrink by the early 2040s without new interventions, Gan said.

While the Government’s top priority is to continue supporting Singaporeans in forming families, he also stressed the need to have a “carefully managed immigration flow to augment our low birth rate”. 

Experts have attributed Singapore’s persistent baby woes to more Singaporeans remaining single and married couples having fewer or no children.

To tackle these issues, an inter-agency workgroup called the Marriage and Parenthood Reset Workgroup was formed earlier in 2026 to find ways to better support Singaporeans in marrying and having children.

However, the latest demographic data is not all bleak as the number of teenage mothers and single-parent birth registrations fell significantly. Single-parent birth registrations refer to babies whose births were registered without the father’s name.

Only 140 babies were born to teenagers aged 19 and younger in 2025, a 43 per cent fall from the 244 births recorded in 2024.

Some 258 babies were registered without the father’s name in 2025, 22 per cent fewer than the 330 babies in 2024. Only 17 per cent of these babies in 2025 were born to teens aged 19 and under.

Meanwhile, the number of deaths rose by 0.2 per cent from 26,442 in 2024 to 26,499 in 2025.

In 2025, the two major causes of deaths were cancer, and heart and hypertensive diseases, which accounted for slightly over half of all deaths here.

The report said that “unnatural deaths”, such as accidents, suicides and other “external causes”, made up only 2 per cent of all deaths.

Most of those who died were elderly, with 87 per cent of them aged 60 and older. 

The median age of those who died was 78.2 years old in 2025, up from 76.1 years in 2016.

Mathew Mathews, head of the Institute of Policy Studies Social Lab, pointed out that the gap between the numbers of births and deaths has narrowed over the years, and Singapore is approaching a point where deaths may outnumber births.

In 2025, there were just 3,365 more babies born than the number of people who died, down from 7,261 in 2024 and 14,380 in 2021.

Over the longer term, the narrowing gap means fewer young people joining the workforce, while the number of seniors continues to grow.

This will place greater pressure on a smaller number of people of working age to support healthcare, elder care and social spending, while families have heavier caregiving responsibilities, Mathews said.

“It could also mean that Singapore becomes more reliant on immigration, higher productivity, automation and longer working lives to sustain economic growth,” he added.

Shannon Ang, an assistant professor of sociology at the Nanyang Technological University, said that Singapore has to depend on immigrants to maintain the population size given the demographic trends.

However, too much immigration too quickly has implications for social cohesion and the Government has to tackle the issue carefully, he said.