WHEN DID ADVICE BECOME A PROMISE?

Sep 26

6 min read

There are several stories about Singapore that seem to be gaining traction online.

One says that an entire generation was sold a formula:

Study hard. Get a degree. Find a good job. Work hard. Live a good life.

Young Singaporeans followed the formula, the argument goes, only to graduate into a tougher job market, high housing prices and rising living costs. They did what they were told, yet the promised outcome never arrived.

Another story is about happiness.

Former Foreign Minister George Yeo was recently asked why Singapore, despite its wealth and success, appeared relatively unhappy. He recalled Lee Kuan Yew repeatedly telling him: “Never promise happiness.” Yeo also observed that the ministries he once led had terrible work-life balance, yet exceptionally high morale. His provocative conclusion was that sometimes “unhappiness may be a precondition for achievement.”

Then there is Singapore's demographic problem.

Marriage is happening later. Births are falling. Singapore's resident fertility rate reached just 0.87 in 2025, while citizen births fell 10.8% from the year before.

The usual explanations are familiar: housing is expensive, children cost too much, work is demanding, the education system is stressful.

There is truth in all three stories.

But perhaps there is also a common assumption worth examining:

At what point did favourable conditions become guaranteed outcomes?

The formula worked. But was it really a formula?

“Study hard and you will get a good job” was probably never a contract.

It was an observation.

For decades, educational attainment was strongly associated with better employment opportunities and higher incomes. Parents saw it happening around them and gave their children perfectly rational advice:

Study hard. Get qualified. Increase your chances.

The important words may have been lost along the way:

Increase your chances.

Correlation gradually became interpreted as causation. And somewhere along the way, advice became expectation.

Get the degree → therefore I should get the job.

Get a good degree → therefore I should get a good salary.

Work hard → therefore I should progress.

But employment has never worked that way.

A company does not employ someone because that person needs a salary of $5,000 to cope with Singapore's cost of living. It employs someone because it believes that person's contribution is worth the cost of employing them.

That may sound harsh, but it is an important distinction.

Employment is ultimately an exchange of value.

And the economic environment has changed.

The latest Graduate Employment Survey gives some legitimacy to the anxiety. Among graduates seeking employment, 83.4% were working within six months in 2025, down from 87.1% in 2024. The proportion securing full-time permanent employment fell to 74.4%, although the median gross monthly salary among those in full-time permanent work remained at $4,500.

So young graduates are not imagining that entry into the workforce has become more difficult.

But neither does the evidence say that education has stopped working.

Most graduates still secure employment. What has weakened is not necessarily the value of education, but the certainty people may have attached to it.

Perhaps the lesson was never:

Follow this path and success will follow.

Perhaps it was:

This path improves your odds. What happens after that still depends on the economy, the competition, your choices—and what you do with the opportunities you get.

When copying somebody else's route to success, it is worth asking whether you are sitting the same examination paper.

Who is responsible for our happiness?

George Yeo's comments created another interesting debate.

It is worth correcting one premise first. Singapore is not actually one of the world's unhappiest countries. In the World Happiness Report 2026, Singapore ranked 36th.

But his broader observation raises a more interesting question.

What exactly should society provide—and what must ultimately remain the individual's responsibility?

Singapore's National Pledge famously speaks of achieving “happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation.”

That is a national aspiration. It is very different from guaranteeing the personal happiness of every citizen.

Governments can influence many of the conditions around a life: safety, healthcare, education, employment opportunities, infrastructure, housing policy, social support and the broader economic environment.

They cannot determine whether someone finds meaning in a career, enjoys raising children, values free time over income, wants a condominium or is perfectly content in an HDB flat.

Those are deeply personal choices.

And they sometimes conflict.

We may want higher income and shorter working hours.

A larger home and lower housing costs.
More public services and lower taxes.
Strong economic growth and less foreign labour.
Career progression and more family time.

There is nothing wrong with wanting any of these things.

The difficulty is pretending there are no trade-offs between them.

Singapore's current labour market illustrates this tension particularly well. As of July 2026, overall unemployment was just 1.9%, with resident unemployment at 2.8%.

That does not mean everybody has the job they want, at the salary they want, doing work they enjoy.

It means something much narrower.

And that distinction matters.

A society can provide opportunity without guaranteeing satisfaction.

Then there is the family question

This is perhaps where the discussion becomes most uncomfortable.

Singapore genuinely has a demographic problem.

The resident fertility rate fell to 0.87 in 2025. Citizen marriages also declined to 21,671, while the median age at first marriage has continued to rise.

It is tempting to turn this into another simple story.

One version blames Singapore: children are too expensive, work is too demanding, housing costs too much and education is too stressful.

The opposing version blames young Singaporeans: they have become too individualistic, prefer travel and consumption, and simply do not want the responsibility of raising children.

The data suggests reality is more complicated.

In the Government's 2021 Marriage and Parenthood Survey, 80% of young singles said they intended to marry, while 77% of single respondents wanted children. Among married respondents, 92% said their ideal was two or more children. Yet many ultimately had fewer children than they wanted.

Costs mattered. So did stress, childcare and the difficulty of balancing work and family.

But personal preferences mattered too.

Among those who did not intend to marry, commonly cited reasons included valuing individual freedom and comfort, concentrating on studies or careers, and not believing marriage would improve their lives.

Both things can therefore be true.

Singapore can make raising a family easier.

And individuals can increasingly choose a life in which family occupies a smaller place.

Those are not contradictory findings.

They are choices interacting with circumstances.

There is no free option

Perhaps that is the common thread running through all three debates.

We have become very good at discussing constraints.

Cost of living.
Housing.
Competition.
Working hours.
Education pressure.
Immigration.
AI.
Globalisation.

And these things matter. Pretending otherwise would be equally simplistic.

But there is another variable that is much harder to measure:

agency.

What do I do given the circumstances I have?
Do I adjust my expectations?
Build different skills?
Change careers?
Spend differently?
Accept a smaller home?
Choose public transport instead of a car?
Trade income for time?
Have children knowing that they will involve sacrifice?
Take responsibility for ageing parents?
Or decide consciously that some of these things simply aren't priorities for me?

There may be perfectly legitimate answers on either side.

What becomes problematic is wanting the choice without accepting its consequences.

Maybe the Singapore story needs an update

The old Singapore story was built around advancement.

Study hard.
Work hard.
Save.
Build a family.
Own a home.
Give the next generation something better.

It reflected the circumstances of its time.

Today's Singapore is richer, better educated and offers vastly more choices. But more choices also mean individuals have to make more decisions about what a “good life” actually means.

Perhaps that requires a different social narrative.

Not: Do everything right and life will reward you.

And certainly not: Everything difficult in your life is your own fault.

Instead: Society shapes the opportunities available to us. But within those opportunities, we still have to make choices—and own the trade-offs that come with them.