Singapore records sharp birth decline and growing morbidity gap in 2025

Singapore reported 29,864 live births in 2025, an 11.4% drop from the previous year, while deaths rose slightly to 26,499. Ethnic Chinese accounted for 56.6% of births, Malay 22.5% and Indian 11.5%. The Malay community recorded the highest birth rate at 11.8 per 1,000 population, whereas the Chinese rate was the lowest at 5.3 per 1,000. Cancer was the leading cause of death, followed by heart disease and hypertension, together accounting for 52.1% of all deaths.

A separate global analysis published in The Lancet Public Health found that Singapore, despite leading the world in overall life expectancy, is seeing its healthy‑life‑expectancy lag behind. The morbidity gap – the difference between total lifespan and years lived in good health – widened by about 2.35 years (26.6%) between 1990 and 2023. Researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the National University of Singapore warned that longer lives are not automatically healthier lives and called for stronger prevention and rehabilitation measures.