Vietnam removes two-child rule to combat low birth rate, ageing population

Vietnam has scrapped a long-standing policy of limiting families to two children as the communist-run country contends with a declining birth rate. Photo / AFP

Vietnam’s communist Government has scrapped its long-standing policy of limiting families to two children, state media said on Wednesday, as the country battles to reverse a declining birth rate.

The country banned couples from having more than two children in 1988, but a family’s size is now a decision for each individual couple, Vietnam News Agency said.

The country has experienced a historically low birth rates during the past three years.

The total fertility rate dropped to 1.91 children per woman last year, below replacement level, the Ministry of Health said this year.

Birth rates have fallen from 2.11 children per woman in 2021, to 2.01 in 2022 and 1.96 in 2023.

The trend is most pronounced in urbanised, economically developed regions, especially in big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as the cost of living rises.

Tran Minh Huong, a 22-year-old office worker, told AFP the government regulation mattered little to her as she had no plans to have children.

“Even though I am an Asian, with social norms that say women need to get married and have kids, it’s too costly to raise a child.”

Sex imbalance

Deputy Health Minister Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, speaking at a conference earlier this year, warned it was increasingly difficult to encourage families to have more children, despite policy adjustments and public campaigns.

She said the declining birth rate posed challenges to long-term socio-economic development, including an ageing population and workforce shortages.

She urged society to shift its mindset from focusing solely on family planning to a broader perspective of population and development.

Vietnam is also grappling with sex imbalances because of a historic preference for boys. On Tuesday the Ministry of Health proposed tripling the current fine to $3800 “to curb foetal gender selection”, according to state media.

The gender ratio at birth, though improved, remains skewed at 112 boys for every 100 girls.

Hoang Thi Oanh, 45, has three children but received fewer benefits after the birth of her youngest, because of the two-child policy.

“It’s good that at last the authorities removed this ban,” she said, but added that “raising more than two kids nowadays is too hard and costly”.

“Only brave couples and those better-off would do so. I think the authorities will even have to give bonuses to encourage people to have more than two children.”

Vietnam’s giant neighbour China ended its own strict “one-child policy”, imposed in the 1980s because of fears of overpopulation, in 2016 and in 2021 permitted couples to have three children.

But as in many countries, the soaring cost of living has proved a drag on the birth rate and the moves have failed to reverse China’s demographic decline – its population fell for the third year in a row in 2024.

- Agence France-Presse