(Sept 24): Behind Singapore’s success may lie a factor with little to cheer — its unhappiness, according to a former top politician in the city-state. 

“Sometimes, unhappiness may be a precondition for achievement,” former foreign affairs minister George Yeo told Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain. Yeo, whose ministerial career ended in 2011, was responding to a question about Singapore ranking among the world’s wealthiest countries but also one of its unhappiest. 

While Singapore is the richest country in Asia by gross domestic product per capita, the city often lags in various happiness surveys. Residents, even its richest, often bemoan a breakneck pace of life and work culture underpinning those illustrious achievements in the financial hub. 

The city’s workers are the second-least happy across the Asia-Pacific, according to the SEEK Workplace Happiness Index. On the Ipsos Happiness Index 2026 of 29 countries, Singapore scored 73% — a touch below the 74% global average. It fared better in the World Happiness Report, placing 36th of 145 countries, pushed up by its top scores in life expectancy and perceptions of corruption but dragged down by its middling rating of positive emotions. 

“We can promise economic development, infrastructure, education, whatever,” Yeo said, recalling Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s words to his staffers. “But never promise happiness.”

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