On the 15th of January 2025, Channel News Asia has a commentary from Tricia Tok titled, “A match made in policy — should the state play cupid”. The lede reads: “Tokyo has rolled out a government-backed dating app to help singles find marriage partners. Should governments be playing matchmaker?”

Hi, my name is Terence and this is the Daily Monsoon, a podcast where I reflect on what I read in the news to get a Christian perspective.

The problem as Tricia states is this:

In 2023, Japan had twice as many deaths (1.58 million) than births (0.73 million) and Tokyo’s total fertility rate sank below 1.0 for the first time to 0.99.

A shrinking population is bad news for the economy (a smaller domestic market), national defence (less soldiers) and social security (less contributors to retirement funds).

Japan is not the only country concerned. Many developed countries face the same problem.

So this dating app is just one out of many policy initiatives in Japan to get people to marry and have babies.

Tricia made one point in her article, which I thought missed the mark. She wrote:

Policies ostensibly designed to assist families can inadvertently alienate singles in a culture that places immense value on family life. Efforts to create a more inclusive environment for singles may thus be undermined.

She rightly notes that even if programmes successfully get more people married, it does not mean more babies. Many couples prefer not to have children.

Thus, she thinks it is more important to create spaces where “people can form genuine relationships — whether friendships, romantic partnerships, or familial bonds — without feeling societal pressure to conform to traditional norms.”

I assume she means traditional norms as in married couples should have children.

She begins the article by describing the problem, the shrinking population. Then she reveals the problems with current solutions, such as the dating app. Then, at the end of the article, she concludes that the government should work on nurturing genuine relationships without requiring these relationships to conform to traditional norms.

But how does that last part help with the shrinking population? It might make for a happier population, which you could argue is more important than a larger one, but then you should make the case that a shrinking population is not really a problem. It’s not a problem for the economy, national defence or social security. I am not sure, even with genuine relationships, how happy people can be if the rest of the country collapses.

I am sympathetic to her concerns. She is right, too much emphasis on marriage and babies can make singles second-class citizens. This happens in churches.

But we should remember, the Bible has Adam and Eve, “It is not good for man to be alone”. It also has Paul, “I wish everyone was single like I am”. So, we should definitely not neglect the singles in our effort to build happy marriages. I hate the term involuntarily celibate. It is a demeaning term. As the Apostle Paul tells us, singlehood is a gift from God.

When I consider the shrinking population problem, it seems that society has lost its way. To a certain extent, no matter how the government tries, if the population does not want to get married, or if they get married and don’t want to have children, then the other way to sustain or grow the population is… immigration. A hot topic we won’t get into.

But if society, if people, did not have such a negative view of marriage; if they do not aspire towards the “dual income no kids” lifestyle; or to put it in positive form: if they saw a lifelong commitment to another as a gift from God; if they saw children as a sacrifice and also a blessing, then they would have a Biblical view of how marriage and family fit within the society at large, without discriminating against singles.

It’s not only Christians who think this way. Many cultures and religions value marriage and children, the family unit as the building blocks of a nation. When did this all changed?

Let me put to you: Since the beginning of civilisation to the 1900s, rich societies do not become smaller, they become bigger. Poor societies become smaller because the people do not have enough food. Rich societies have surplus food, so they become more populous.

But that all changed in the last 100 years. I think shrinking population is because of cultural shifts away from traditional norms.

When married couples, including Christians, shifted from having lots of children, to having less children, to having no children.

To conclude, I think Tricia is right. Dating apps and other government policies will not move the needle much if people just don’t want to have children. Unlike her, I think we should return to traditional norms, though I would put it as, going back to God’s design for the family in society.

This is the Daily Monsoon. Thank you for listening.