Life expectancy of S’pore’s population rose in 2025 to 83.9 years, higher than pre-pandemic peak
Syarafana Shafeeq
The Straits Times
June 3, 2026
Singapore residents are expected to live longer than before, surpassing the life expectancy projected in pre-pandemic years.
Women also continue to have a longer lifespan than men, according to the latest numbers from the Department of Statistics (DOS) on June 3, which reflect an overall trend of increasing longevity for those living in Singapore.
The life expectancy at birth for Singapore residents in 2025 was 83.9 years, higher than what it was in 2024, said DOS.
In 2024, the life expectancy was 83.7 years, same as the pre-pandemic peak in 2019. Life expectancy refers to the average number of years a person may expect to live, based on current mortality rates.
Residents aged 65 in 2025 can also expect to live to 86.6 years, according to DOS’ preliminary data. This is a 0.2 year increase from 2024 and 0.8 year from 2015, found in the report on the Complete Life Tables for Singapore Resident Population 2024-2025 published by DOS.
Women are reported to have a longer life span compared with men. On average, males aged 65 in 2025 can expect to live to age 84.9 years, while females aged 65 can expect to live to age 88.1 years.
The resident male and female life expectancies at birth were 81.8 years and 86 years respectively in 2025. This is up 0.3 year for males and 0.2 year for females from 2024.
Over the last decade, male life expectancy improved by 1.3 years from 80.5 years in 2015, while female life expectancy improved by 0.9 year from 85.1 years in 2015.
Director for social sciences at A*STAR Institute for Human Development and Potential Jean Yeung said the increase in life expectancy in 2025 is modest but meaningful.
Singapore has not only recovered from the pandemic mortality shock, but has slightly surpassed its pre-pandemic level, she told The Straits Times.
“Whether this represents a new acceleration beyond the pre-Covid trajectory requires several more years of data,” she added.
With Singapore being among the world’s longevity leaders, future gains are likely to be slower than in the past, Yeung said.
“The key challenge is no longer simply extending lifespan, but extending healthy lifespan and maintaining quality of life in later years.”
The expected survival rates of Singapore resident newborns also continued to improve between 2015 and 2025, with newborn girls having a higher rate, DOS said.
The proportion of newborn girls expected to be alive at age 65 years increased from 93.6 in 2015 to 94.4 per cent in 2025, while the proportion expected to be alive at age 85 years showed a larger increase from 59 per cent to 64.3 per cent.
The proportion of newborn boys expected to be alive at age 65 years also increased from 89 per cent in 2015 to 90.3 per cent in 2025. The proportion of this group expected to be alive at age 85 years rose from 42.3 per cent to 47.6 per cent.
In 2021, Singapore residents’ life expectancy fell for the first time since such data became available over 60 years ago, due to higher mortality rates during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Singapore Management University sociology professor Paulin Tay Straughan said that given Singapore’s ultra-low total fertility rate, the nation should stop viewing longer lives as a burden and instead harness the opportunities of a longer-living population.
With Singapore’s limited resources, human capital is key, she said. With people living longer, more focus needs to be put on tackling workplace ageism.
Older Singaporeans have raised concerns about privilege given to younger entrants into the labour force, and how employers may be less willing to invest in someone older, she said.
Singapore needs to systematically address that, she added.
Tay said there are outdated assumptions about ageing, such as that older people are dependent. Some also automatically associate ageing with decline, or view retirees as people who need support rather than people who can contribute.
Singapore is on track to become a super-aged society in 2026, with at least 21 per cent of the population aged 65 or older.
Tay urged people to stop looking at one’s biological age, but to instead look at competency.
“A person who is 70 today is not the same as a person who was 70 a few decades ago, because people are living longer and healthier lives. We need to rethink what what age means to us.”
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