#56: Minister Indranee Rajah: What Does It Take to Want a Future in Singapore?

Singapore's total fertility rate has hit a historic low. But this conversation was never really about birth rates.

It was about what modern life actually feels like for many Singaporeans today. The pressure. The exhaustion. The invisible weight of always having to keep up. And the quiet calculation so many people are running; about whether building a family here is something they can imagine, afford, or want.

Minister Indranee Rajah leads Singapore's Marriage and Parenthood Reset. She is also single. And she has no children of her own.

In this conversation, we go beyond policy. We talk about:

- The invisible mental load women carry that no support system fully removes

- ⁠The pressure parents feel before a child is even born - and why it starts earlier than most people realise

- ⁠The women who have built lives they genuinely love - and aren't sure they want to give that up

- What the public reaction to the word "detour" was really saying

- What it means to lead this conversation as a single woman without children

- The family she lost - and why their absence shaped her understanding of family itself

- Whether modern Singaporean life still feels emotionally sustainable enough to build a family within

Chapters