Singapore doesn’t just lack a conservative party. It lacks a conservative vision. Despite widespread talk of “conservative values”—marriage, sexuality, family—no coherent vision steers the nation.
It’s not just about money
While the Singapore government has introduced practical pro-family measures—baby bonuses, parental leave, childcare subsidies, housing grants—these are largely economic levers. Yes, they offer real support, and in a tough climate, they matter. But they operate within a narrow paradigm because they assume that declining marriages and birth rates are simply problems of cost and convenience.
Solve the affordability gap, the thinking goes, and family life will revive.
But Singapore’s real crisis is not just economic—it’s cultural, and this time, our technocratic instincts have misdiagnosed the problem. When we needed to shape deep cultural norms, we threw money at the problem.
Think about the campaigns that truly left their mark: the Courtesy Campaign, Clean & Green Singapore, even “Stop at Two,” disastrous as it was.
They reshaped the nation’s imagination simply because they were so pervasive. Can we say anything comparable about our family policies today?
Till now, no bold national narrative has rallied Singaporeans to desire marriage, embrace the beauty of parenthood, or see family life as deeply fulfilling. Without that cultural capital, no amount of incentives will secure our future as a nation.
2022’s “Year of Celebrating SG Families” sadly amounted to a poorly executed campaign and material incentives to ease family life. A nice try, but also ultimately social engineering in service of GDP.
The ruling party’s “pro-family” policies hand out carrots but lack conviction. Family is treated not as a good to be honoured, but as a tool—a way to win favour from a largely conservative population, or to preserve economic stability.
A nation shall not live by carrots alone.
The opposition is no better
A close reading of the GE2025 manifestos shows that almost every opposition party remains trapped in the same economic frame that governs the PAP—treating marriage, family, and culture as problems to be managed, not goods to be cultivated.
- The Progress Singapore Party (PSP) focuses on technocratic fixes but says little about marriage, family, or cultural renewal.
- The Workers’ Party (WP) talks about affordability but offers no moral vision.
- The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) discusses inequality but is silent on the cultural roots of family decline.
- Red Dot United (RDU) proposes handouts but no renewed social vision.
- The Singapore People’s Party (SPP) offers subsidies but stays within the material paradigm.
- Only the People’s Power Party (PPP) even attempts a modest cultural stance: proposing to protect the definition of marriage as between a biological male and female, to shield children from LGBT promotion, and to review family laws to discourage adultery. But beyond these limited but meaningful gestures, there is no real blueprint for rebuilding the social and moral foundations of family life.
Opposition parties critique PAP pragmatism but mostly offer the same framework: economic tweaks, subsidies, incentives – just not the ones the PAP proposes.
Like the ruling party, they misdiagnose the crisis. They treat marriage and family as policy levers, not as sacred trusts that require cultural renewal, moral formation, and public honour.
The result is a hollow debate—a fight over methods without a fight for meaning.
But what Singapore needs, is a principled, not merely pragmatic, political force. One that sees family life, childbearing, marriage, and intergenerational ties as ends in themselves.
Pragmatism is a crutch and efficiency isn’t enough
Singapore’s rags-to-riches story proves what pragmatism can achieve. Pragmatism believes that once the numbers look good, the job is done. But when every social question is reduced to dollars and cents, deeper goods like love and loyalty erode.
We see it in family life. Marriage is delayed not because love has vanished, but because buying a flat or securing financial stability becomes a precondition for commitment. Parenthood is postponed, sometimes abandoned, not out of selfishness, but because children are seen as unaffordable risks rather than gifts.
The system trains Singaporeans to think economically first, relationally second.
Efficiency may deliver prosperity; but it cannot deliver love. When family is treated as a project or transaction, it loses its sacredness.
Unless we recover a cultural imagination that sees family as covenant and calling—not just contract—no amount of incentives will rebuild what our utilitarianism is quietly tearing apart.
Even as family loses its cultural centrality, new voices are stepping in to redefine it.
The left pushes, the right is silent
Progressive activists shape Singapore’s cultural politics more boldly every year. They champion “chosen families,” same-sex parenting, and a redefinition of family through public campaigns and movements like Pink Dot.
Their strategy is clear: highlight the lived experiences of non-traditional families to reshape public sympathy and drive policy change.
Meanwhile, conservatives remain muted. Their values endure within traditional communities but barely touch the mainstream which is now dominated by liberal narratives. Few major civic groups rally for marriage publicly. No widely-read outlets champion a positive family vision. The space stands ceded.
And so while progressives frame the narrative; conservatives react—if at all.
The fiasco surrounding the potential PAP candidacy of prominent LGBT activist Deryne Sim is a case in point. Goh Meng Seng’s pushback was reactive, but not rooted in a clear cultural blueprint. There was outrage, and some general articulation of the importance of family, but no coherent vision to rally around.
The pro-family cause remains poorly defined and barely visible. Without a clear platform, voters are deprived of choice and will prioritise immediate, pragmatic concerns over the deeper work of cultural renewal.
The manifesto we desperately need
Singapore needs a family-centred platform that sees family as an intrinsic good, not just a means to economic or political ends.
Such a movement would renew marriage as a covenant—a lifelong bond ordered toward human flourishing—and honour the complementary roles of mothers and fathers.
It would affirm the common sense notion that some family structures serve society and children better than others, and that not all lifestyles are equally valid or beneficial.
It would resist the normalisation of alternative family structures. It would recognise that children thrive best with a mother and a father committed to each other for life.
Policies would treat children as blessings, not burdens. Parenthood would be supported through community-led childcare, family-first planning, and flexible work built around the home, not the other way around.
Civil society would be revived—religious groups, community organisations, and cultural institutions would do more to mentor young families, prepare couples for marriage, counsel those already married, and strengthen intergenerational ties.
Caring for the elderly would not be offloaded to the market or state, and the euphemistic killing of an aged parent would be unthinkable.
Given the gravity of the situation Singapore now faces, tentative tweaks will no longer suffice. Singapore needs clear, principled leadership willing to stand for enduring truths about family, marriage, and community.
The family must not survive as a sentimental relic. It must thrive as the beating heart of a resilient, future-facing Singapore. Family built this nation and only family can preserve it.
What’s at stake if we don’t
Peter Drucker warned, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Singapore mastered strategy. It neglected culture.
Today, Singapore’s collapsing birth rates reveal more than a demographic crisis. They speak of a loss of hope, meaning, and communal identity. A slide into community decay and population collapse.
Shrinking families weaken support networks. Rising existential anxiety and economic insecurity push young adults into isolation, technology, consumerism and even migration.
Fragmented households shift the burden of care to the state, and needs once met by family and community—raising children, caring for parents, supporting the young and old—will be outsourced to companies.
Without strong families, Singapore risks becoming just a supply chain with a flag—efficient but hollow.
No amount of incentives or strategic planning can reverse demographic collapse without a cultural renewal rooted in family, conviction, and shared identity.
This must be an inflection point
Recent political shifts underscore how the cultural ground is moving beneath our feet. The PAP’s decision to platform Deryne Sim marks a turning point.
Sim’s activism for Pink Dot and LGBT+ causes signals a clear departure from the PAP’s historic moral neutrality. It reveals not only shifting alliances but the cost of decades of technocratic expediency.
A government once proud of being “whiter than white”—that once implied Vincent Wijeysingha had a covert “gay agenda”—now needs to court controversial figures, to remain palatable to progressive currents.
But this shift did not create the vacuum. It revealed it.
For years, the ground beneath family and cultural conviction has been hollowed out under a pragmatic veneer. And now, without a principled vision, even a party built on discipline and austerity drifts in the wind.
For family-centred Singaporeans, this must be a wake-up call—not because progressives have grown bolder, but because the old architecture that once protected cultural norms has crumbled.
Practicality without conviction cannot defend what it no longer understands.
Conservatives must not see political engagement as a grudging reaction to the PAP’s warm welcome of LGBT activists. They must see it as a calling—because truth, covenant, and family are worth defending.
Pro-family Singaporeans must be compelled by the worth of their own worldview—convinced it is not merely useful, but essential to the nation’s future.
Protect Singapore, Jason Wong, and others have sounded the alarm. But two brave voices in the wilderness are not enough.
Conservatives face a choice: build or vanish. Craft a vision that defends marriage, family, and the next generation—not as a reaction to cultural atrophy, but as a renewal.
The era of Family-Centred Singaporeans being “price-takers” must end. It is time to offer Singapore not just protest, but a better story—one anchored in covenant, community, and hope.
With initial contributions from Angeline Tan.
Angeline Tan holds a background in international relations and history. She writes for Regardless and Live Action, with a focus on culture, family, and public ethics. Her interests include the preservation of traditional values, cross-cultural dialogue, and advancing the pro-life cause in both policy and public discourse.
