The 30s Are Heavy: Understanding Suicide Among Singapore's Young Adults

We call it the prime of life, but for some, it's a decade of hidden struggles.

- Jared Ng and Gasper Tan

In 2024, suicide deaths among men and women in their 30s rose to 75—the highest increase across all age groups.

This was one of the details that stood out in the latest report by the Samaritans of Singapore, which revealed that 314 people in Singapore took their own lives in 2024.

Numbers can rise and fall year to year, but adults aged 30 to 39 now make up almost a quarter of all suicides here. That can't be explained by population growth alone. It reflects how heavy life can feel in this middle decade.

We like to imagine the 30s as a "prime" decade. Careers should be secure and growing, families are forming, health is still on our side. For many, this image does not match reality. Instead, the 30s can feel like a decade of colliding responsibilities.

THE PRIVATE WORLDS OF THE 30S

A man wakes up, puts on his office clothes and boards the MRT as usual. He lost his job months ago but has not told his spouse. He spends the day in a library, scrolling through job ads, rehearsing imaginary interviews and wondering how much longer he can keep up the act.

A mother leaves work on time each day to fetch her children from childcare. She smiles at the gate, chats with other parents, and goes home to cook, feed, bathe and coax the kids to bed. She is also caring for her father-in-law with dementia. After the house is quiet, she sits on the kitchen floor and cries, convinced that she cannot keep going.

A person picks up the spouse's phone and sees a string of messages, confirming a relationship with someone else. The next day, it's about going through the motions—nods in meetings, replies to e-mails, and forcing a smile when colleagues ask about family. That night, the person spends an hour in the carpark, staring at the dark dashboard, unsure how to walk back into a life that now feels like a lie.