Far East: Why Is Singapore's Overwork Culture Unsustainable?
Singapore ranks among the Asia-Pacific countries with the longest average workweeks. Stress, anxiety, and related disorders are increasingly impacting workers’ quality of life. A 2024 report found that employees lose around 70 workdays per year due to work stress stemming from fear of termination of layoff, and furthermore that they lose 57 days per year due to stress from performance demands.
In Addition, Singapore ranked third in burnout rate globally, based on a study that analyzed Google search data related to mental exhaustion, work-related stress, and burnout recovery. In 2025, burnout rate among younger workers aged below 40 years reached 50% and, within this demographic, the prevalence of workers aged 30–39 years experiencing burnout was as high as 53.4%. A 2025 study shows that older males in Singapore have a higher burnout rate of 16.6% than females, partially due to the prolonged working hours for male.
A lot of factors contribute to the work stress and burnout in Singapore, and some of the most crucial are the competitiveness and performance demands of the work culture, rising costs of living and housing, and prevalence and normality of long working hours and overwork.
Work Culture
Within a hierarchical system, the Singaporean work environment has strict work rules — the rewards system values performance and hard work, which becomes catalysts for long working hours and a normalized overworking schedule. Most organizations maintain clear lines of authority, with executives and senior employees expecting compliance from junior staff. Junior workers are usually not able to share their perspectives unless being asked. One worker being interviewed characterized the system as “hierarchy is everything”.
According to Ives Tay, a senior workforce development advisor in Singapore, alarmed that the work system that rewards compliance over creativity not only kills innovation, but also forces capable individuals to get used to silence in front of authority.
Kiasuism
Kiasuism, stemming from the Hokkien phrase for "afraid to lose out," is a prominent Singaporean cultural, psychological, and behavioral trait. In the work setting, Kiasu or Kiasuism is characterized by the sense of competitiveness to stay ahead of other workers and avoid missing any opportunities.
Kiasuiam is not always a negative trait. However, in a company, Kiasu is easily translated to a highly competitive mindset and diligent behavior patterns, that fueled tension, stress, burnout, and related disorders. Some workers demonstrate their hard work and diligence by working after-hours. Some tend to exceed goals and aim to maintain superiority over their peers. In addition, ADP® Research Institute reported in 2023 that about 50% of Singapore workers work up to 10 hours unpaid time per week.
Workplace Experience in Singapore
In IPISO workplace trends index report in 2025, 18-24-year-olds noted long hours. Yet, increasing with level of seniority and management, the extent one characterize their work experience as “friendly” and “respectable” substantially increases.
Notably, when employees were asked how they felt about their work environment according to different adjectives, the percentage of workers using positive words was mostly lower than other countries in the world. 27% of Singapore workers selected the word “friendly”, 10% less than workers globally. Furthermore, the word “supportive” was 3% lower; the word “client-focused” is 8% lower, and “learning” and “taking responsibility” is 1% lower.
However, for more than 50% of the negative traits, Singapore workers have percentages higher than that of workers in other countries. For instance, the word “biased”, which is selected as “yes” by 10% of workers in Singapore, is 5% higher, whereas the word “narrow-minded” is 4% higher.
The statistics vary greatly with seniority. In the report, 80% of senior workers feel like their companies welcome feedback, yet only 50% of non-managerial employees feel the same.
Challenges and Opportunities
Singapore, as one of the most overworked countries with around 23% of the population working over 48 h per week and normalized unpaid weekly overtime, continues to face challenges regarding quality of life and mental health. A 2025 survey found that 73% of Singaporean employees reported unhappiness and 62% were experiencing burnout.
Research found that a four-day workweek might substantially reduce stress and burnout while improving work-life balance and sleep quality. In 2025, Singapore National Employers Federation conducted a survey on executing a four-day workweek plan with the same pay. However, only 5% of the employees expressed openness to the idea, while 79% of them opposed it.
Four-day workweeks have been implemented in many other countries: 89% of organizations in the UK who started the plan on a trial basis chose to keep it, and Microsoft Japan’s adoption of a 4-day workweek even resulted in a 40% increase in productivity and a 94% employee satisfaction rate. So do Singapore workers dislike the idea? Amid sustained overwork and rising burnout in Singapore, a phased adoption of a four-day workweek or enhanced workplace mental health support systems may offer a realistic response.
The skepticism among Singaporean workers reflects deep-rooted concerns about workload intensification, job security, and rigid workplace hierarchies; none of these concerns could be neglected.
Several factors might explain their resistance against the four-day work week plan. The first is fear of workload intensification, which signifies same volume of work being compressed in fewer days, resulting in longer working hours and heightened stress. With the issue of unpaid overtime already persisted, a four-day work week plan might further formalize overwork and unpaid hours. In addition, circling back to the concept of Kiasu, some workers may worry that their colleagues will continue working on the “off” day, which intensify their fear of falling behind.
Without government support for trial participation, clear operational frameworks on mental health issues, and reduction on unpaid overworking norms, workers’ well-being and quality of life may substantially drop and lead to more serious outcomes. In the end, strategic investments in worker well-being are critical to alleviate the country’s escalating mental health issues: burnout, poor work-life balance, experience at the workplace, and health quality.